Reflexión de la docente Luz Marina Cortés Beltrán

E. Nandhini*; R. Jeyagowri** *PG student,

**Professor

Department of Resource Management, Avinashilingam Institute for Home Science and

Higher Education for Women, Coimbatore, INDIA.

_____________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT:

House is a place built for people to live in; physical, psychological and spiritual needs of a family should indicate the forms and materials of homes. Furniture are movables either for use or for ornaments with which house is equipped. It acts as a mediator between architecture and people. Furniture fulfills the specific function such as sitting, sleeping etc. it provides comfort in things we do. Furniture organizes the space within a room and exhibits one‟s personal taste. Furniture has become part and parcel of our life. Thus the study on “Use of Furniture in Selected Households of Coimbatore City” is chosen to ascertain the use and importance of furniture in the selected residences. A household survey was done in fifty high income households to assess the availability, use and preference of different furniture, analyze the efforts taken in the care and maintenance of furniture and the level of satisfaction in the use of furniture by the selected households. These households were selected by purposive sampling method. These high income families could afford to buy costly good furniture for various rooms.

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INTRODUCTION:

A house is a dwelling unit consisting of walls, floors, doors, windows, roofs etc in which human beings live. A house may have number of rooms. Each room will be only an empty space until it is furnished properly. Furnishings give meaning to a house. When the pre-historic man started to build the house to meet his needs, the first step towards settled existence was taken. The use of furniture indicates that people wanted to live permanently in one place and the type of furniture they selected reflected their kind of life (Gandotra et al, 2011).

A huge decorative house is incomplete without appropriate furniture. Furniture can not only make a building look comfortable and luxurious but also useful and complete. It is therefore important to take time to plan furniture which suits the needs in accordance to one‘s lifestyle (Khanna, 2001).if architecture is the structure or back bone of a house then furniture is the muscle. It makes the empty space habitable and functional. Thus the furniture lends certain character to a room which determines whether we call it ―modern‖ or ―traditional‖ or habitable. Reckitt (2004) claims that the feeling of being ―at home‖ can‘t be bought, however, because it comes from an intimate relationship between us and our most personal place. One should make sure that the home is comfortable, warm and inviting and is a ―lived-in‖ place.

METHODOLOGY

A household survey was done in fifty high income households to assess the availability, use and preference of different furniture, analyze the efforts taken in the care and maintenance of furniture and the level of satisfaction in the use of furniture. These households were selected by purposive sampling method. These high income families could afford to buy costly good furniture for various rooms.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE STUDY

A .Selection and Purchase of Furniture in the Houses 1. Selection of Furniture

This heading presents the sources of information and factors influencing the selection of furniture for various rooms of the selected houses.

a. Sources of information

The knowledge about selection of furniture helped the households to choose the right furniture for their houses. Table 1 lists sources of information for the selection of furniture for their houses.

TABLE 1: SOURCES OF INFORMATION

Sources of information Percentage (N=50)

Family members 90

Advertisement from newspaper 16

Internet 12 Interior designers 8 Exhibitions 8 Magazines 6 Architects 2 On line 2

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A majority of members (90 per cent) were involved in choosing the furniture for their houses whereas 16 per cent obtained information from newspapers and 12 per cent from internet. Less than ten per cent of the families received information from architects, interior designers, exhibitions, magazines and online for purchasing their furniture.

b. Factors influencing the selection of furniture

This heading presents the factors influencing the selection of furniture for their houses. (Table 2).

TABLE 2: FACTORS INFLUENCING THE SELECTION OF FURNITURE

Factors Percentage (N=50) Comfort 74 Easy maintenance 44 Cost 38 Quality of product 34 Style 32 Beauty 20 Utility 8

Seventy four per cent of the selected households considered comfort as a criterion for selecting their furniture. The other factors which influenced the selection of furniture were easy maintenance (44 per cent), cost (38 per cent) and quality of the product (34 per cent), style (32 per cent), beauty (20 per cent) and utility (8 per cent) for the selected houses.

c. Purchase of Furniture

A majority of 54 per cent of the households designed furniture from their own carpenters, while 34 per cent of them purchased from local furniture shops and 24 per cent bought traditionally from only one shop.

Expenditure on purchase of furniture

The amount spent on purchase of all furniture in the selected houses is given in Table 3. TABLE 3: AMOUNT SPENT ON FURNITURE

Amount spent (in Rs) Percentage (N=50)

Up to Rs 1 lakhs 4

Up to Rs 2 lakhs 40

Up to Rs 3 lakhs 56

The amount spent for all the furniture bought or designed for their houses ranged between Rs one lakh- Rs three lakhs. Fifty six per cent of the selected houses spent up to rupees three lakhs whereas 40 per cent of them spent up to two lakhs and minimum of four per cent had spent up to rupees one lakh on furniture for their houses.

A majority of 90 per cent of the selected households were having current trend furniture. Fifty eight per cent of the selected households were not having furniture specially designed to suit custom need whereas 42 per cent were having furniture specially designed to suit for their needs.

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A. Information on Current Trends and specially designed Furniture

Among the families which had custom need furniture, wardrobes were observed in the bedrooms in 12 per cent to keep clothes and other valuable items, eight per cent of them had cupboards in the bedroom to store their things and six per cent of them had diwan and pooja mandapam in the living room. Four percent of them had wall unit in the living room, it consists of TV unit and chest of drawers to keep their belongings. Each two percent had corner sofa and wardrobe in living room for sitting and storing and storage cupboard in dining room for storing the things needed for serving.

D. Home Furniture based on Materials

A majority of 88 per cent used wooden furniture in dining room, 86 per cent in living room, 82 per cent in bedroom, 50 per cent in study room and 20 per cent in pooja room, eight per cent in computer room and two per cent in foyer room.

Wooden material is used commonly for all types of furniture like movable, fixed, built-in, folding, multi-purpose, stackable, storage and upholstered. Metal (28 percent) is used for movable furniture. Similarly plastic (40 percent) is also used for movable furniture and very few for folding (16 percent) furniture.

E. Care and maintenance

1. Extra efforts taken to maintain furniture

Forty four percent had taken extra efforts for upholstered sofa to clean upholstery material using vacuum cleaning and 46 percent took extra efforts to maintain wooden wardrobes and wooden beds using varnishes and polishes. Ten percent had given extra care for maintaining glass table.

2. Maintenance of furniture

Two types of finishes were used such as varnishes (66 percent) and polishes (34 percent) for wooden furniture in the selected houses.

3. Satisfaction derived using the furniture

In a majority of 98 percent of the houses the furniture arrangement allowed ease of movement and use. Furniture was well maintained and in good condition in 96 percent of the households. Furniture served its purpose in 94 percent of the families and created aesthetic sense in 88 percent of the houses. Eighty six percent of the households were satisfied for the good selection of furniture for the reason for being proportionate to their rooms

CONCLUSION

House becomes an ideal place for living when it is furnished with proper furniture. In this fast growing technological world the lifestyle and character of the houses change according to the trend. The households updated their knowledge on recent trends in the market and adopted the trends in the selection and use of furniture for their houses.

REFERENCES

 Gandotra, V., Shukul, M. and Jaisawl, N., Introduction to Interior Design, Dominant Publishers and Distributers, Delhi, Pp. 181-237.

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 Khanna, G. (2001), Art of Interior Design, Indica Publisher, New Delhi, Pp.20.

 Reckitt (2004), 2nd Edition, Book of Complete Home Care, UBS Publications Ltd., New Delhi, Pp.1, 3.

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A s i a n J o u r n a l o f

M u l t i d i m e n s i o n a l

R e s e a r c h

( A J M R )

SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC POWER GENERATION-A GREEN