This year has been very special for my family. We shifted into our newly built home and embraced modern life, like never before. The humongous effort that went in having the house built from scratch and investment of time, money and effort, greatly affected our investment in any artwork.

Though the home we lived in earlier was our own too, but a new home did call for decor make-over to give our new home a dash of contemporary interior designing. From the past six months, slowly and steadily we are working on this front. The living space on the first floor of our home, has a large blank space. It has been screaming for attention to gift it color and life.

Things changed when Blogadda bestowed me with the ‘Free Shopping Fiesta‘ opportunity. As part of this opportunity, I had the privilege to shop for items worth Rs 5,000/- for my home from Quikr.com, share my experience on the blog and also be in the running of win fabulous prizes.

There has been much talk about Quikr in our family when my Aunt and cousins successfully sold over all the bric-a-brac of their now-grown-up kids at decent price to de-clutter home on Navratri and managing to bag a steal deal on a 32″ LED TV that was barely three months old. Ever since, mom had been asking dad to create an account to taste the joy of good bargain. When this opportunity, courtesy Blogadda came our way, mom was the most ecstatic among us in the family because she already had a wish list ready.
Since, dad hadn’t been taking mom seriously, mom and I teamed up. Mom’s enthusiasm had been pumped by the daily TVCs of Quikr and the narratives of my aunt.

On the homepage,

We comfortably selected our city and proceeded to Register for an account as we both knew in our heart this association is going to go a long way, given the long list of items mom had in mind of getting rid of and off course to buy.

We quickly punched in our details, verified the mobile number (with a simple missed call) and voila we were ready to shop & sell in matter of five minutes. With a budget of five thousand, mom and I had reached a consensus on looking for home decor items, keeping in mind the living space on our home’s first floor.

We clicked on the Home & Lifestyle category. One click and I could feel mom’s face light up like a 1000 watt lamp for the variety at offer and the meticulous sub-divisions had made browsing easy, quick and efficient.

Our search was driven by following key factors:

a. Home decor item(s).

b. Something to add life to our living space.

c. Item that we couldn’t buy otherwise due to unavailability/ rarity / price issues.

d. Our budget was fixed at Rs 5,000 (though we were open for a deal beyond this budget)

e. Location of the product had to be local to enable us to see the item live, before we finalized the deal.

While we sifted through sub-categories, we added so many items to our wish list, to plan our future expeditions on Quikr. Our search finally ended on Painting

Mom and I have a strong inclination for paintings. Be it on canvas or fabric (in the pictures below the bed sheet has been painted by yours truly) we love decorating our home with them. We both used to paint on canvas, but over the years somehow we haven’t painted cause of one reason or the other. While finding time to paint is next to impossible in our given circumstances (with mom’s health issues and I being busy with Pari), buying a painting from the art exhibition hasn’t been fitting in our budget either. We were well aware that finding a painting big enough to fill the wall could cost a fortune, but trying to buy an old masterpiece in good condition, could fit the bill.

“Painting to me, is a unique experience. Each work is a surprise and has its own personal and intuitive meaning. After brainstorming feelings and memories, each painting evolves freely and independently”. ~ Fernando Araujo

We started browsing. Beauty, talent and colors lay strewn everywhere the cursor went, but either the price or the size of the painting weren’t quite suiting us. In a few circumstances the alignment being vertical went in our disfavor as we need a horizontal piece of art.

We shortlisted a handful of paintings over a couple of days. In the meantime, mom decided to take the situation in her own hands; quite literally. She downloaded the Quikr mobile app and then there was no stopping her from browsing and finding great deals on items, we had no clue we could actually buy in our own small town.

All of the paintings we had shortlisted, were well beyond our budget. But mom was confident, there would be room to bargain as we were dealing with real people and not retailers. With Diwali round the corner, we didn’t want to miss on buying one of these masterpieces. Hence, we chose to directly call the sellers instead sending email messages. One of the sellers was out of station for Diwali holidays, one wasn’t interested in bargain and one agreed for a one on one chit-chat to take the deal further.

 

We were quite lucky in the fact, that the person who had given a favorable reply owned the painting we had liked the most. A meeting was fixed. Mom and I went over to meet the seller at their home.

The only point of worry in my mind was the quoted price for the painting was Rs 8,500. When we reached their home, the lady whom we’d spoken to, was busy attending to a few guests. Her son took us to have a look at the painting. In one look, mom had made up her mind. This was it. She loved the subtle tones, the folk feel, and the dimensions to fill our living space in scenic rural Rajasthan beauty. The wonderful condition of the painting hinted the love with which it had been cared for.

The family was migrating to Mumbai, that’s where the boy who’d shown us the painting worked. Since he lived in a small apartment, taking the painting along was out of question. The seller (his mother) was emotionally attached to the painting having owned it for over 20 years.

The family was very warm and happenings of the evening had the goodness of people in love with art, interacting. My mom and the lady got along very well right from the start. Slowly we learnt that she was the sister of one of mom’s college mates. It is indeed a small world full beautiful co-incidences. The deal finally sealed suiting our budget (though a little over 5,000). The two (my mom and the seller) agreed up upon more deals as the lady had many other decor and handicraft items to sell (for which she hadn’t posted an ad, as she was waiting to see the outcome of this deal) before leaving for Mumbai.

The painting arrived in our home post Diwali and has adorned the wall as if it was always meant to be here. The seller’s family was very kind in helping transport the painting safely to our home.

We are trying to evolve this living area with folk feel of cultural Rajasthan. This majestic painting has added a lot of personality, vibrance and life to the dull looking area. We are currently in the process of buying furniture for this space. Looks like Quikr is going to come handy yet again.

It has been quite an eye-opener, learning experience for me.

While I learnt to look at deals of used (but in good condition) items positively, I also learnt that unwanted goods eating dust in the store-room can actually be useful for someone else. Monetary gains for placing an advertisement for FREE is a huge plus, not to forget the multi-lingual, easy to use mobile app which adds to the ease of operation.

Quikr indeed played the perfect match-maker. The seller sold her painting quicker, we bought what we were looking for since a long time at a steal deal and got a friend for life.

If you are like me, Quikr is the place to be to shop all you want at best deals, available locally to see, feel and like before you pay.

  In dark age of inflation, Quikr is the lining of silver,

When cluttered home bites, Quikr is the saviour,

When classified is your need, Quikr is the answer,

When online deals look dubious, Quikr is true & better,

When retailer’s profit sky-rockets, Quikr is cheaper,

What you want is what you get,

With deals in pocket’s harmony,

Spot ad….act quick… don’t be a loser,

Trust… but be clever,

To win… post a picture,

It’s an addiction that’ll never get over,

Shop smarter,

Shop better,

Save bigger,

Only with Quikr,

Buyer seller ka perfect match-maker.

*This post is a part of Quikr.com activity at BlogAdda.com