Editor’s Note: ** Updated in 2019 for relevancy**
I have been reviewing every service provider that we have worked with over the course of moving into our new home. This one has been long pending.
Circa 2015.
One lazy Sunday afternoon in July.
Someone sent me the link to Furdo. First reactions: the concept was novel; the theme names were catchy; designs interesting, and cost reasonable.
Furdo Pricing and When did I avail their service?
July 2015: One thing led to another, we decided on the theme and signed up for their design at a cost of Rs.11,400 including service tax by that evening.
The team got in touch with us over the next couple of days, asked a few questions to formulate our expectations and understand design sense better.
The theme I bought: New Ethnic.
How did Furdo work (then):
- Choose a theme from the available themes.
- They visit the house, customer also shares the plan. They design the house based on a chosen theme. Once design is finalized, recommendations are given from where each item in the design can be bought.
- Implementation of the design at an additional cost.
- Testimonial: They were smart to take a testimonial from me the evening I signed up even before getting a feel of their service and experience. And I was naive enough to give a glowing review just based on the website. Some lessons are learned the hard way.
Our Inputs for the design:
I met the team personally once after answering their questions over mail to better explain the design vision I had for our home:
- Based on our collective hobbies: our love for movies, gardening, music, and riding to be reflected as framed quotes around the house.
- Living room to have an ethnic influence through Tanjore paintings, low wooden seating and carved panels on the ceiling.
- Kitchen: I face east while cooking. So I designed the various parts accordingly. The dishwasher and a small sink to the left when you enter from the dining. The hob sits in the center on a 4 feet projection from the left counter and 5 feet from the dining entrance. Blue backsplash.
- A pooja unit between the steps and powder room.
- A TV unit in the guest bedroom downstairs and in the living downstairs.
- Need a small office area with a large book shelf in the first floor family room.
- Furniture: there were two things I was clear about: a four poster bed in the MBR, and a wooden dining table with a bench.
- A buddha wood panel in the dining room.
- A mirror in the foyer.
- Shoe rack large enough to have a seating and hold shoes, and inverter if need be.
- A gallery wall with exposed bricks in white as the background.
The Final Design:
After three iterations, this was the final design.
Why Furdo did not work for us and Why I wouldn’t recommend:
- Only online vendors, so the options were limited. For instance, the size of the shoe rack needed. Or, installation of granite or switching plug points etc.
- Gap in understanding and interpreting customer’s requirements. Many of the items I still bought online from Pepperfry, Urban Ladder and such after doing our own research that matched our tastes.
- No false ceiling – even if one is not going with something fancy, there are often simple requirements for false ceiling where the ceiling power points are either too far away or too near. I have never been a big admirer or false ceiling, but there were places such as the MBR and dining room where I wanted one for ease of accessing lights.
- No paint solution. It was never clear looking at the themes that the only solution being offered then was wallpapers and no paint solution. There were places where I preferred a textured paint.
- Availability issues of products recommended – either the hyperlinks wouldn’t work or the products were sold out.
- No wooden flooring partners.
- Laying of dado tiles in kitchen, and other civil work such as installing granite etc.
- No back paneling for TV to conceal wiring.
- Glass partition providers in bathrooms.
By looking at the themes, it was not clear that these were not being offered then.
Why Furdo was a bad investment
A pdf file listing all the items to be bought over a hundred:( First, the links were just to the images with many items missing. Then, it was updated. Frustrated, I just gave up and deemed it as a bad investment.
Where and how you can use Furdo effectively:
My posts are always objective and fair. So, let me highlight the areas where you can use Furdo effectively:
- If you are not aware of the options available online for furniture, decor, then Furdo is a great option as they list the brands you can go with. But if you are someone like us who are very clued in as to what you get where, then the value add may be marginal.
- No wood work: if you lack the time for design, research, dealing with carpenters, and are happy with a quick turnaround, then again this may be a good choice.
- No knowledge of materials: believe me, it is very easy to get cheated in this ocean of interior design. Often, what you pay for is not what you get. You get cheated at every stage from MDF/ply to laminate brands and tiles. Then, it is always better to go with trusted sites and the groundwork of which sites are trustworthy in this space is already done by Furdo.
This post is entirely drawn from our personal experience.
5 Comments
Hi , I am thinking of finalizing Furdo for my home. Would it be possible for you to get in touch with me so that I can understand every part in a little bit of more detail.
Thanks,
Sheenal
A true unprofessional fraud company is Furdo. Our project is going on from jul 2017 and still not completed. Post sales phase all along it was a mental hassle. Designer did shitty design for 2 plus months…. at last we had to visit their office and sit down with them for hours to correct it. Then comes the implementation phase…. and my nightmare started. So many missing items, absolutely no control on the workers, so many excuses, so many missed commitments. No one picks up call. Till date my pooja unit door is missing and it seems furdo team is waiting for approval from their md kiran Singh!!! I have cancelled so many items from the BOM as furdo was not able to deliver, Furdo needs to now return to me 37k. God knows whether they will return it or not!! Some of their work done in our home doesn’t match design. Complete fraud, unprofessional and cheater they are. DO NOT GO WITH THIS COMPANY FOR YOUR INTERIOR.
Please please DO NOT use FURDO. They are the worst interior company ever filled with frauds who have no clue on how to finish a project. They TALK big but cannot execute anything. My dream villa is in shambles even though they have been working on it for 10 months. Now I am left with no ready house and a deadline to move in. Very angry and disappointed that I chose this unprofessional company! Run away as fast as you can from anything associated with Furdo which includes their current set of management – Rithwik Reddy, Shaktivel, Arvind Alexander…..all dishonest and fraud will take your money and do no work.
The WORST company in the market. Stay away from them. I signed up with these cheats in 2016 and now in Sep 2018 my 4 BHK is still a mess. Rithvik Reddy is a big cheat and would not deliver anything..
Very bad experience. They will sign a contract with you and give the contract to a contractor who gives it to another contractor and you will be caught in the layers of contractors and on top of that Furdo will have no clue what’s happening on the ground. I signed the contract 6 months ago and since then I am following up every day and still not even 50% of the work is complete.
They will take money in advance and once you pay the money, you are stuck. When you push them, shout on them in their office, they will rush through the work and send some sub-standard carpenters and the end products will be far from what they had shown you in 3D design ( I don’t want to comment on the designer, I don’t where they get them from, totally incompetent. We had to search in the internet and come up with the designs)
I was talking to around 10 people from Furdo to their contractors and they keep blaming each other and at the end nothing will move and you are stuck.
The COO and co-founders they are equally clueless they don’t know what’s happening on the ground. When you complain to them they will start collecting information from the contractors who will have excuses ready and in the end, you will get a promise on the new deadline. So I was sick of their excuses and decided the close the project halfway.
I have put my hard earned money to build this home and these guys have spoiled everything. For them it is just a project so at the end they don’t care, they will get another one and but for me, it was my dream home.
So just one suggestion guys, if you can avoid them, do so. If you have to put so much effort and follow up from your side every day, even local carpenters would do a far better job.
If you want to know more about the experience before you bet you hard earned money on them, I would be happy to share. You can contact me on +919986220808 or drop me a note on mohib.haque@gmail.com