Step inside Sunil Chhetri and Sonam Bhattacharya’s warm and earthy home (Source: Sonam/Instagram)When Indian football icon Sunil Chhetri and his wife Sonam Bhattacharya decided to build their home, it was about crafting comfort after years of distance and a hectic sporting life.“All the places that I’ve lived before… the majority was because of my career,” Sunil begins candidly in a video tour of their home for Asian Paints’ Where The Heart Is. “When we decided we’re gonna get married, I thought we had to have our own nest. And this is what we made.”“For me, home is the place where I can be myself,” Sunil reflects. “When I come home, I just feel peace. I just relax… I’m calmer.” Their house is witness to their quiet mornings, shared coffee on the deck, and a kitchen garden that Sonam lovingly tends. “Next time when you come to my house, you’ll find a full-on herb garden here,” she beams.From the start, their story was one of understanding and evolution. “We never lived together… but I think—long distance, yeah—all the time.” That friendship gave way to a natural ease when building a life together. “Marrying someone who understands those things, coming from the family that she comes from, and knowing me for the last 15 years really helped,” Sunil says. “TV is the only thing that I’ve bought. Everything else you see in the house is all her choice.”Walk around their house and you’ll see warm wood tones and an open layout. “There is no match to it. This is what I wanted,” Sunil says about the heavy use of wood. “That’s my mentality.” From wedding gifts turned keepsakes to a “glass walk-in closet” that Sonam cheekily admits is “only my stuff… because I’m the most organised one,” the home tells their story in tactile ways.One major design challenge was optimising space: “We always wanted that the kitchen and the living area—or the drawing room—should be open and a big one,” Sunil explains. “Sadly, in this house, we didn’t have a big space. So we broke the wall of the kitchen… now everything is in one place.”While football runs through Sunil’s veins, there’s another side of him that lives in his study. “This is the room—my office room—that I spend most of my time in, thinking out new things, trying to bring up new ideas,” he says. “So many things that were pending that I wanted to do, apart from football. It’s a nice feeling inside.”Story continues below this adA personal highlight? His Golden Tweet Award, the most retweeted post of his career. “So unexpected. I never ever would have thought I’m gonna get… but this is really sweet.”At the heart of it all is humility. “There are so many who have dreamt of it. There are so many who are dreaming. I’m living the dream,” Sunil says of being India’s national football captain once. “This is something which is only me, there’s only one captain, there’s only one Sunil Chhetri in this country. It’s an amazing feeling.” For more lifestyle news, click here to join our WhatsApp Channel and also follow us on Instagram© IE Online Media Services Pvt LtdTags:Sunil Chhetri