Talking about the home you share with your life and business partner from separate rooms might sound like a bemusing quirk, but for Arati Sharma and Satish Kanwar, founders of tech investment firm Good Future, it’s just another day at the office. “We never take meetings together,” Sharma says with a laugh, dialing in to our Zoom call from her second-floor workspace in the couple’s 2,985-square-foot home in Toronto’s High Park neighbourhood. Meanwhile, Kanwar joins from his office, located three floors down in the home’s basement. 

The couple, who have a five-year-old son, had traded their King West condo for a four-bedroom, three-bathroom home just months before the pandemic hit in 2020 and work went fully remote. But they were better prepared than most for co-working while cohabitating. Having met on the job while at Shopify, they had “already learned how to establish boundaries,” Sharma says, “which made work from home really easy.” They quickly added his and hers offices to their design plan—hers with tropical wallpaper and a print of a Bengal tiger above the reminder: “The rest is just as important as the work,” his with natural grasscloth wallpaper and mementoes of previous professional roles.

The emphasis on zen isn’t restricted to their workspaces; in fact, this is clear the moment you walk into the “modern mullet” home (“business in the front, party in the back,” as Sharma explains), which they have rebuilt from the ground up. In the entryway, a pair of sculptural cement hands by Sean Brown function as an incense holder, often wafting the earthy aromas of Loewe’s Tomato Leaves incense. 

Also obvious: the couple’s modern take on their families’ cultural traditions. Born and raised in the Greater Toronto Area, Sharma and Kanwar have roots in India, with their parents coming from Punjab and Delhi in the 1970s. More than 30 years later, they have embraced and amended their parents’ traditions. “My mom does Arti in the morning and in the evening; it’s very ritualistic andreligious,” Sharma says of the Hindu prayer ritual. “For me, it’s more that I always have incense going in the morning.”

When the family of three needs a moment of mindfulness, they head up to the third-floor hallway mandir to meditate. “I’m Hindu, and Satish is half Hindu, half Sikh,” Sharma says. “It’s our spiritual corner.” 

Across this space, a fantastical tapestry by artist Rajni Perera hangs in the staircase. It’s the anchor for what will soon be an installation of family photos and heirlooms, including a recently recovered traditional loom fabric from Kanwar’s family, one of many valuables lost on his family’smove from Punjab to Delhi during the Partition of India in 1947. It’s an emotion-filled and meaningful piece for the couple, combining art and personal history. 

“On paper, Satish and I are buttoned-up tech executives and we do investing and all that stuff,” Sharma says. “But behind that paper, we have a deep appreciation for our culture.”

That includes a focus on their community. “Our home has a very open-door policy,” she says, so much so that she made sure their dining table would seat at least 12 to accommodate large groups, whether that’s Kanwar’s coding colleagues or their big Indian family. The main floor acts as their communal gathering place, and the open-concept kitchen is at the heart of it. Sharma loves to cook their family’s favourite dishes on their hard-working eight-burner stovetop, like mattar paneer complete with homegrown curry leaves. Meanwhile, Kanwar serves as the resident barista, expertly crafting Americanos and cappuccinos with their La Marzocco at the integrated coffee bar. 

Just off the kitchen, their cozy sunken living room hosts casual hangouts and playtime with their son and his grandparents. The space also features a mixed-media artwork by local artist Tahsine, which doubles as a reminder that, amid the family’s busy lifestyle, it’s okay to occasionally slow down. “She took a little play on the whole ‘let’s go,’ and instead it says, ‘take your time, let’s grow,’” Sharma says. 

The built-in bookshelf and coffee table are grounded in this philosophy too—every artfully displayed book functions as reading material for the couple and their little one, rather than purely decorative. Their literary interests are vast, ranging from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and John Burns’s The Kinfolk Garden to The Illustrated Mahabharata, a Sanskrit epic on ancient India. 

Despite the Danish influence sprinkled throughout furnishings in the home (the trending look when they started designing in 2019), the essence of the home remains entirely their own, full of texture, warmth and, most importantly, colour.

“We’re South Asian, we live with colour,” Sharma says. “There needs to be something lively.”