Tucked away in the serenity of North Goa, is this themed holiday villa conceptualized in a modern Balinese design style, with a tropical vacation vibe, yet exuding a home-away-from-home feel. The tropical vibe of Goa, with its sandy beaches and lanes lined with trees, instantly led us to choosing a Balinese style for one of the villas. Balinese interior design incorporates the outdoors like no other. Warm, earthy colors, rich tropical foliage within spaces and the most beautiful blend of wood, stone and cane.

All about balance, Balinese spaces are a seamless amalgamation of the outdoors and indoors. The property has an open floor layout and an entrance flooded with natural light, which made it easier for us to incorporate this style of design. The only major challenge we faced is that the layout didn't have a dedicated kitchen space. We had to integrate an open kitchen format into the living space, maintaining the overall look and feel. Flowing from the crisp white kitchen cabinets is a counter extended to act as a breakfast cum bar set up. The layout consists of the living and dining space with an open kitchen and one bedroom on the ground floor and a second bedroom and a den-like lounge space on the floor above.

Without being too busy, the furniture layout was kept very clean and minimalistic, giving a zen-like calmness that is quintessential to the modern Balinese style. The overall narrative is woody with a basic, monochromatic color palette of whites, blacks and greys, the key statement elements being cane, live-edge wood and large plants. As Bali is a land rich in tropical foliage, the coherent fusion of greenery and plants into the design became imperative. The dining area and master bedroom have large plants as the backdrop that adds to the 'forest feel'. Set against the plant backdrop on the top floor bedroom is a stunning, live-edge headboard that gives the necessary character and drama to the space. As for the dining area, continuing the same narrative is a raw, live-edge dining table top flanked on both sides by a bench seating designed in jute roping.

In an attempt to give the space an unobstructed feel, we broke down the wall separating the living area and bedroom and opted instead for louvered, folding wooden doors to partition the space. Lovely geometric patterned floor tiles, wooden rafters on the ceilings and large, cane hanging lights are the attributes that keep the balance between modernism and traditionalism. A woody, floating staircase leads us to a lounge area on the floor above with glass walls for a visual connection between the spaces. The true beauty of the living space lies in its double-heighted ceiling rightfully adorned with wooden rafters and black metal and jute lights. A mosaic of ideas resulted in the realization of an outdoorsy Balinese narrative within sunny, north Goa.