Moroccan Inspired Interior Design
On the Road to Morocco
It’s time to add a little exotic ambience to your home. Let your decor brag about your travelling, show that you’ve immersed yourself in alien cultures, broadened your mindbeyond these chilly shores… and made your living room more interesting in the process.
But when the world is truly your interior design oyster, where to go? Well, today spin the globe and stop it at North Africa – latitude 32º North and longitude 5º West: the Kingdom of Morocco. Think of Tangier, Marrakesh and – most evocative of all, if you’re a movie buff Casablanca. A different climate, a different continent, and most certainly a different décor in which you can dabble.
Colouring
Traditional décor (in any country) is probably dating from a time before air-conditioning. Which is why if you were to take a peek in a few houses around Rabat, you’d probably find a lot of plain whitewashed walls, with the colours and contrasts coming from fabrics, rugs, hangings, screens, etc. But in the UK, we remember the 70s and we’re so far north we’re practically in Scandinavia so white walls don’t really feel that special. So if you’re lookingfor a Moroccan colour palette, be drawn to the fact that it was and is a major trading centre (the meeting point between Africa and Europe, half of the gateway to the Mediterranean) and think spices. Allow saffron, cinnamon, turmeric and ginger to be your inspiration and start picking out deep golds, heavy reds and rich browns for your walls and ceiling. One final thought: blue doors are apparently seen as good luck – what colour is your front door?
Furnishing
To date, Ikea has yet to open a branch in Fes, so forget cool, pale pine and birch. What you’re looking for are dark woods. Whether it’s tables, dressers, washstands, chairs, the darker the better. Intricate carving, decorative metalwork, tile inlays? Now you’re talking. A nice low coffee table with some tilework on which to serve your sweetened mint tea would be perfect. Or maybe a heavy chest for the bedroom at the foot of your mosquito-net covered bed?
Morocco is a predominantly (and historically) Islamic country so the typical decorative shapes are geometric in appearance, no representations of the human figure. These patterns can be incredibly involved and busy but in a totally different (and less fussy) fashion to English chintz. So when you’re searching out your casbah cushions, look for tessellated hexagons, dodecahedrons and other many-sided shapes mapped together in a delicate geometric fusion.
Lighting
Not too bright is the idea here. And not too few. Instead of a single Western central ceiling light, illuminating the entire room at the flick of a switch, try a number of lamps, both electric and candles. Multiple lamps hanging at different heights, with different coloured glass – or maybe just metal with geometric (of course!) holes and patterns punched through – will give an appropriately intimate, low-level and just-the-right-side-of-seedy feel. Imagine a few dark shadows at the edges of the room and then imagine what might be lurking in them.
Dining
Finally, if you’re going to have the atmosphere, you should put it to good use. Why not an authentic, slow-cooked lamb tagine with apricots, dates, almonds and sultanas (and spices)? After all, after you’ve done the washing up, the tagine – the cone-shaped earthenware pot after which the dish is named – could sit ornamentally in the kitchen, spreading the Moroccan theme a little further through the house.
Now that you’ve got the global decorating bug, where else could your travels take you?
