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Health & Fitness

Spice Up Your Life with Moroccan Design

Learn how to successful use Moroccan inspired design to bring new life and style into your home.

Moroccan style can be bold, colorful and exciting--taking its cues from the surrounding landscape of North Africa. Its influences are very wide-ranging from Arabic, Spanish, French to Moorish all giving Moroccan design its very unique and striking look. Long on coastal seas, backed into desert and baked under relentless sun, this exotic style takes inspiration from the colors that their geography provides. Ochre mountain ranges, silvery moonlit desert-scape and golden sands make way for hot, vibrant oranges and reds that are refreshed by deep blues and sparkling greens of the sea. Traditionally, the decor is very ornate with intricate patterns and bright, rich colors. Modern interpretations of this style are simpler, with large scale patterns and current colors trends.

A Moroccan style is quite a rustic look, so your first thought for your walls should be the texture. Moroccan walls are quite rough in texture. To get an authentic look, go for your own texture or weathered finish on the walls. If you don't want to re-plaster your walls with a textured finish, try a paint effect like suede, faux-finish paint, a color wash, or mix a little builder's sand in with your paint to get a really textured look. These will all just take the smoothness of your modern walls and help you get a more ethnic and Moroccan style.

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To achieve the best authentic feel, lots of layers of fabrics and textile patterns are needed all around the room. If you consider yourself a minimalist, then Moroccan style is not for you; although you can definitely take some inspiration from them and use huge graphic motifs. Handmade tiles are a very important design feature. The various colors and designs are not only used for the floors, but for walls or furniture elements, such as tabletops. When considering the furniture, nothing too sophisticated and fancy must be used. Simple, rustic style furniture made of dark wood featuring iron decorations will always be the most adequate choice. Carved wood and wrought iron decoration will look nice, though, and add to the Moroccan feel. A modern take on Moroccan furniture is the pouf, similar to an ottoman. When it comes to accessorizing, it is all about a few key pieces. All you need to create beauty and interest is a throw rug, some toss pillows, a lantern and a side table. What's great about this exotic look is it is considered timeless; Moroccan styles have always been popular and in style.

 

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