Designing Beautiful Storeys Sita & Shaunali Nanda

The mother daughter duo are a force to reckon with in the capital’s interior design industry. They give hello! A peek into their lives and their beautiful home

- Sanghita Singh

Aesthetes have a nuanced way of attracting and multiplying their own ilk. Some trace it to genetics and manifest creative progency that have similar predilections. Together, they create castles not in the air, but very much on earth, radiating all that is refined and bespoke. When Sita Nanda set up a career in interior design, her daughter Shaunali was all of 10. Following her mother’s abilities to transform spaces, Shaunali trained herself almost by instinct – and started showing aesthetic skills early on. “Yes, I was quite influenced by my mother and I honed my own craft – the opportunity of working with very talented people internationally, gave me great exposure. I actually started designing and making lamps when I was 17,” shares Shaunali as the mother and daughter sit to chat with HELLO!

Their Maharani Bagh home is tastefully done. It’s old fashioned in certain places with a modern bearing of comfort. “It’s a home that we have done through the years and is not necessarily the way our clients like it. We went along spontaneously without any pre-meditated ideas or planning – there were many heirloom pieces and objets d’ art that were gifted and collected over the years that made it to the décor,” explains Sita. “Some of the stuff in the house is as old as I am, some perhaps older. I grew up around these beautiful objects that mom had collected and curated over the years. As I came into my own understanding of designing spaces, I started contributing as well. Now I’d say, the house is an amalgamation of things we like, bought and have put together. In fact, we just threw the chips up in the air and let them fall as they did,” adds Shaunali.