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Pooja room and prayer room woodwork

By the WuDesign workshop, Thottakkadu · Photographs are of our own work · Updated 6 September 2026

In short

  • Doors, jaali screens, mandir units, ceilings and panelling for a pooja room, prayer room or family chapel.
  • Drawn to your room - the pattern is cut for the opening you have, not picked from a catalogue of sizes.
  • Teak, rosewood, plywood, MDF or WPC; pierced right through, so the lamp inside reads through the screen.
  • Cut and finished in Kottayam district; installed anywhere in Kerala.

A pooja room is a small room that everybody in the house looks at every day, which makes it the least forgiving joinery in a Kerala home. There is nowhere for a bad mitre to hide. It is also the room where the light is doing the work - a lamp behind a pierced screen, morning sun through a jaali - so the piercing has to be cut clean right through and finished on both faces, because both faces are seen.

We make the whole room, not a door out of a range: the doors and their frame, the jaali or the tracery above and beside them, the ceiling if it is being panelled, the shelf and the mandir unit itself, the brackets and the moulding around it. It is drawn first. The drawing goes to you at the size of your actual opening, and the machines are not switched on until you have signed it.

The same workshop cuts the screens and prayer-room doors below. We have made this kind of work for churches and for houses for years, and the craft does not change between them - a pierced teak screen in front of a lamp is the same problem in a pooja room as it is in a sanctuary. Bring a photograph of the corner you want to use and its measurements, and we will draw something for it.

The short facts

Made
Doors and frame, jaali and tracery, ceiling, shelf and mandir unit, brackets and mouldings
Materials
Teak, rosewood, marine plywood, HDHMR, MDF, WPC
Piercing
Cut right through and finished on both faces
Drawn
To your opening, and signed off before anything is cut
Workshop
Kuttickal Road, Thottakkadu, Kottayam district, Kerala 686539
Hours
Monday to Saturday, 9.00 to 6.00
Area served
All of Kerala
Machining
Our own CNC routers, on our own floor - nothing sub-contracted
Installation
By our own team, not a hired crew
Photographed work on this site
61 pieces, every one our own

Doors, Screens and Ceilings

  • Prayer-room doors

    Prayer-room doors

    Bells pierced right through the panel, so the lamp inside reads on the landing when the doors are shut.

    Teak

  • Star jaali panel

    Star jaali panel

    A repeating star lattice cut clean through, for a partition or a ventilator. The pattern is set out so no cut lands on a short grain.

  • Jaali screen

    Jaali screen

    A pierced screen for light and air, cut to your own pattern.

    Teak

  • Pierced ceiling screen

    Pierced ceiling screen

    A ceiling panel cut right through and sprayed white. The pattern is drawn to the room it goes in.

  • A carved entrance door

    A carved entrance door

    Two leaves carved top to bottom, hung on a house. The centre stile, the beading and the panels are all cut on one setting, so the pattern runs through the join instead of stopping at it.

    Teak

Fittings, Furniture and Mouldings

  • Carved brackets

    Carved brackets

    Cut in batches to one drawing, so a whole run of them matches.

  • Pierced ornament panels

    Pierced ornament panels

    Two long panels cut right through, straight off the machine and before cleaning up.

Questions we are asked

Will you make a pooja room to my own design?

Yes. Every one is drawn to the room. Send a photograph of the space and its measurements, and if you have a pattern you like, send that too - we will draw it to your opening and show you before cutting.

Which wood is best for a pooja room?

Teak, if the budget reaches it - it is stable in Kerala humidity and it takes a deep cut without breaking out. Rosewood for a darker room. Where cost matters we use marine plywood or HDHMR with a teak veneer, which looks the same at arm's length.

Can you cut a jaali that a lamp shines through?

That is the piece we make most. It is pierced right through and cleaned on both faces, so the pattern reads as light from inside the room and as carving from outside it.

Do you do the doors only, or the whole room?

Either. Most people start with the doors and the screen and come back for the ceiling and the panelling.

How much does a pooja room cost?

It depends on the timber and how much of the room is being carved, so we do not publish a rate. Send the size and a photograph and you will get an itemised written quote, not a lump sum.

Do you work outside Kottayam?

Yes - across Kerala. Cutting and finishing happen in the workshop, so on site we are only fitting finished pieces.

Ask about this

Send a photograph of the wall or the opening, the size, and the feast or the date you are working towards. We answer on WhatsApp.

WhatsApp +91 99475 22121 Enquiry form

Workshop
Kuttickal Road, Thottakkadu, Kerala 686539
Phone
+91 99475 22121
Hours
Monday to Saturday, 9.00 to 6.00. Site visits by appointment.

The rest of the work