Interview with Rukmini Roy

A person who is absolutely mesmerized by the concept of beach houses! She adores the colour white and other pastel shades. From the calm Darjeeling to the fast paced Mumbai, she has a lot to share. She blogs splendid ideas as DIYs for home decor as and when she tries them in her own home at Navi Mumbai. Each day the place becomes a little more beautiful, we’re sure! A person who loves to cook and is undoubtedly a stunning photographer. Here’s an exceptional interview with Rukmini Roy, the winner of the Best Blog Award for the Arts, Crafts and Design Category!

Q. Where did your love for arts, craft and home decor begin?

A: Home & my grandmother’s home. I am not from Mumbai. I am from the north of Bengal and thanks to my father’s job & my mother’s eye for aesthetics that we stayed in some of the most beautiful places, cottages and homes. Our decor was predominantly country cottage in style with lot of old whites and pastels. My mother sewed most upholstery herself and she was very serious about how her home looked. Seeing her do this since I was a kid certainly nurtured within me a knack for home decor and of course, an undying love for white. But she isn’t the re-use girl. The real re-use genius from whom I picked up/ learnt/ got inspired or whatever you’d like to call, is my paternal grandmother. She is extraordinary. She’d use her old “Banarasi” sarees to make drapes that’d put a lot of leading brands today to shame. Her ice-cream cup planters were famous in our family and so were her various recycling endeavors. Her home was a wonderland of little things. It was in her that I found my muse. Strangely, I never did anything till I started living alone. I wasn’t allowed to ‘dirty places’ and ‘collect trash.’

Q. How did you start blogging? Tell us your blog story from the very start!

A: I began to document my journey of my many rented homes and how I changed them in a budget in trumatter.wordpress.com in 2010. It’s a long story though! Soon after I started working in Mumbai, I started staying alone which gave birth to loneliness. It was home-office-home and conversations with some good friends and my then boyfriend {To whom I’m now married}. But at the end of the day it was just me staring at the walls and the walls staring back at me. This is when I started to do little things everyday to keep me occupied. I realized that I hated to stay in a room that does not reflect the essence of my home, so I started to change how it looked, one DIY at a time. If the projects came out well I took photographs and showed them to my colleagues. On one of those days, my business head was around and he suggested I start a blog. I’ll quote him: “You should blog about this. People would love to see this.” I had no idea why they would be interested to see me making flower pots out of discarded burlap but I started it nonetheless. The name trumatter came about the very same day.

Q. Do you remember the first compliment you received on your blog? What did it say? How did it feel being noticed and appreciated through your blog?

A: I think, the first ever was from a colleague and it said, “Dude.. I love this blog of yours… keep writing.. you give wonderful words to your thoughts and in that process to millions of others.. coz they cannot pen their thoughts in such an effortless fashion as yours.. love you loads…”. It was magical to get a comment on my post. Really, magical!

Q. You are absolutely in love with the concept of beach houses. Tell us more about this.

A: Yes I am madly in love with them. One with a lot of white, rustic and beachy things, and light sheers that dreamily sashays in the wind. The idea of sipping my tea in my porch while the sun sets, falling asleep to the sound of the sea and waking up to the sound of the waves is my idea of an ideal life. It is very soothing to me. I love all things nautical, love driftwoods and the color sea foam! Let me add this: I am mortally scared of deep waters but I love them so. A beach house is the closest I could go. I think its this love for all things beach and sea that my personal style is casual/coastal with bits and bobs of vintage thrown in and a healthy dose of white.

Q. Give your blogger friends 3 simple ideas to make their homes decoratively more welcoming and warm.

• Less is more. Just lose anything you don’t use
• Fresh flowers. Nothing makes your home as welcoming as fresh flowers. You don’t need to get fancy at all. An empty sauce bottle, some local flowers or even wild grass.
• Use vintage suitcases/trunks to store your things. They look extremely fashionable and also double as a table.

Q. Do you promote your blog? What promotional techniques work best for you and why?

A: I do. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram is where I populate. In addition, I also link up to weekly blog parties. I think Pinterest & Instagram works very well for me because my blog is supported by photographs and good photos do well on Pinterest/ Instagram.

Q. Where do you seek inspiration from when it comes to your DIYs?

A: I have absolutely no idea. I think it starts from me not willing to overpay for a particular product.

Q. Tell us 3 other blogs that you religiously follow and what is it about them that you absolutely love?

A: Dancing with sunflowers- Janice Heppenstall is a magician with needle-art, a paper crafter and most importantly, a good friend. I have this uncanny affinity towards all things English. India, on the other hand, is a place she longs to visit. The conversations are never ending and she is adorable.

A beach cottage– Born and raised in England, her style of writing is captivating. But what’s really noticeable is how she turned her “tatty, old cottage” to this gorgeous beach house- which now finds mention in leading portals and magazines- all in a tight budget. She loves coastal, she loves rustic, she is a white paint junkie, adores vintage and takes stellar photographs. She is someone you’ll have to love if you love beach house style!

Dreamy Whites– Now much as I love coastal things, I love things French Farmhouse. If you aspire to live in a home that screams authentic french farmhouse, this is where you should be.

Q. What do you find to be the most gratifying aspect of blogging?

A: Oh, I think its very similar to the satisfaction of writing…expressing what I want to say in just the way I want to say it. In rare instances, that satisfaction, that absolute joy, emerges in the process of writing too. To add, to see people like and appreciate what you do is gratifying too.

Q. What is your advice to someone who wants to start a blog?

A: Do it. Have a voice. Be continuous.

Q. Which is your personal favourite DIY out of all the ones that you have presented on your blog?

A: Renovating a very small kitchen with open shelves. One I’m, sort of proud of. You can see it here Kitchen before and after with New Open Shelves in Kitchen, Snaps from the Messy Days and An Organized Wife

Q. You won the Best Blog Award for the Arts, Crafts and Design Category by BlogAdda at WIN. How did you and your loved ones react to this?

A: I was not expecting this at all. Was delighted at the news; more so because painting things white will get more fashionable here on I guess! So were family and friends. A lot of parties and gifting happened there after 😉

Q. You love to cook! Tell us about your first ever culinary experiment.

A: If I remember correctly it was a seafood paella. That day marked a new low in the culinary universe and from me began a new level zero in cooking Paella.

Q. Which is the one dish according to you that you make best, the one that your family and friends absolutely devour? Could you share the recipe for the same with our readers?

A: Thankfully, I have improved a lot since then, thanks to my husband who is a critic by choice. You can count on me if I tell you I make the world’s second yummiest Apple Pie. The first one would belong to Jamie Oliver. The first of every dish would belong to Jamie Oliver.

Here’s the recipe and a photograph just incase:

Ingredients for Apple-Cinnamon Pie
-2 apple, seeded and cut into cubes
-1 pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie or (make your own pie crust like me)
-1/2 cup white sugar
-1 tablespoons all-purpose flour
-1/4 teaspoon salt
-1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
-1 teaspoon lemon zest
-1 tablespoon butter
Cook apple with 1/2 cup white sugar, ground cinnamon, butter, salt and lemon zest till gooey. Add all purpose flour and cook for another 2-3 minutes.
Grease a 9″ pie pan. Roll out your pie dough and cover the base. Pour the apple mixture in.
You can either cover it with another sheet of dough and make designs- i did a lattice top. Place top crust over filling. Fold edge under bottom crust, pressing to seal. Flute edge.
Bake at 450 degrees F (230 degrees C) for 10 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C), and bake for an additional 35 to 40 minutes.

Q. You have moved to the fast paced Mumbai life from your serene life at Darjeeling. Tell us three things about Mumbai that you fell in love with instantly and three things that you wish would stay as they were in Darjeeling.

•  Food options. Yes, that’d be one.
• People. I hear a lot about people in Mumbai. But let me tell you I have experienced things quite contradictory. I think if there is any city in India to have the most chilled out populace- its Mumbai.
• The Boy. That he stays here makes it a great place.

About the 3 things that I wish would stay as in Darjeeling,

• It would be the weather
• No-pollution
• No traffic jams.

Q. What is the future of blogging in India according to you?

A: Well, if you think about the advent of social media, you’d see how blogging really was the first pin to drop. The ability to voice one’s thought/ feelings and put it out there for the world to see pretty much changed the face of publishing, journalism and the media. Blogs have almost become indecipherable from a mainstream media news channel and I’d go as far to say that blogging is a space where you’d see a career.

Q. Lets conclude off with a few favorites.

Color: White

Movie: Oh its very hard to point out. From the recent lot: Searching for Sugarman, Rush

TV Show: None

Book: Nausea by Sartre & Sherlock Holmes {Im bit of a loony that way to take a highly intelligent sociopath as my favorite}

Time of Day: Early morning and very late in the night.

Connect with Rukmini Roy: Blog, BlogAdda, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest.

Thank You Rukmini for a great interview!

For all those who missed #WIN14, you can relive it through the photos!

Bloggers, we hope you enjoyed reading this interview with the amazing Rukmini Roy where she tells us what inspired her to start a blog and showcase all the wonderful DIY home decor ideas.

We look forward to your feedback about this interview.