Pooja Room Design and Build

Details

Rs 42,000 is three running feet at Rs 14,000 a running foot, for a standing or wall mounted unit 3 ft wide and up to 7 ft high, and the fourth foot is another Rs 14,000. A pooja space is used every single morning, and that is exactly what most of them are not built for. Lamp heat sits directly under a laminate shelf and browns it within a year. Camphor soot settles into a matt textured surface and stays there, because a texture that catches light also catches soot. Ash falls into a joint that cannot be wiped. The storage turns out to be too shallow for what is actually kept there. So the design starts from the daily use. A 12 mm granite insert above the lamp position, because a laminate over a lamp is not a heat surface and calling it one is how the browning happens. A gloss or compact laminate on the smoke-facing panel rather than a matt texture, because matt holds soot in its grain and cannot be wiped clean. Drawers sized to what you actually keep. A lighting point wired inside the unit rather than surface run afterwards. Then the aesthetic, in jaali, carved, marble or plain. On board grade this page will argue against the upsell rather than for it. The carcass here is a boiling water resistant board to IS 303, not the marine grade IS 710 used in kitchens, because a pooja unit is not a wet zone and IS 710 would be a grade you pay for and never use. The ISI mark and the mill stamp are printed on the board face either way, and the day the boards reach your site is the only day you can check them.

• Rs 14,000 a running foot, with the contents of a foot printed, 3 feet as the starting package
• Carcass in boiling water resistant board to IS 303, named honestly rather than upsold to marine grade
• 12 mm granite insert above the lamp position, not a laminate called heat tolerant
• Smoke-facing panel in gloss or compact laminate, because matt texture holds camphor soot in its grain
• All four edges of every panel banded, 2 mm on visible edges and 0.8 mm internally
• Lighting point planned into the unit with wiring concealed, not surface run afterwards
• 3D view approved before anything is manufactured, 15 to 22 working days from sign-off
• Not included: idols, lamps, bells and brassware, marble cladding, carved teak jaali, full room panelling and the electrical point itself, each priced below
• One thing no design can fix: camphor soot will still land. This unit is built so it wipes off, not so it never arrives