Mixing Fabrics to Make a Modern Moroccan Master Bedroom

I had so much fun mixing fabrics for our master bedroom.  I really wanted a casual, yet sophisticated look with a worldly feel.  I also wanted to play with layering lots of patterns.  Color and pattern are the two easiest ways to add lots of personality to a room.  I think you will agree, this room has lots of personality.

It all started with the fabric plan.  I pulled together a variety of fabrics (go there to see all the sources) to go in the room.  I focused on coordinating the actual fabrics, before I worried about where they would be used in the room.  Once I had the mix I liked, I was able to decide how to use the fabrics.

Previously, I shared with you the placemat fabric turned into framed art.  The bold Ikea print became no-sew curtains.  The duvet, of course, remained a duvet.  It is not fabric, but the painted lampshades also add color and pattern to the room.  Today I want to show you what I did with the suzani print and a new fabric I added to the mix.

Before I start showing you pictures of my bed, I must let you know that no iron has ever touched my bedding.  Remember we got a new iron as part of our 2012 Home Goals, to allow my husband to launder and iron his shirts at home?  Well, for over 6 months now my husband has done all his own laundering.  That pretty new iron would probably be fabulous for ironing sheets, but seriously, who has time?  I think we will stick with the casual wrinkled look.  So, just to be clear, other than making the bed, I did nothing to make the bed look more presentable.  These our real-life, wrinkled, how-our-bed-looks-everyday pictures.

A well-styled bed, even a wrinkly one, needs great pillows!  I used the suzani print to recover the euro pillows on our bed.  This fabric ties together all the colors in the room, so it was only fitting that it be used in the focal point of the room, the bed.  The medium scale of the suzani pattern works well with the over-sized scale of the pattern on the duvet.  These are envelope style pillows, but I added black piping to the seams.  (I will be back tomorrow with a full tutorial on piped envelope pillows.)

For another layer of pattern, I added the decorative pillow in front.  I found this fabric on clearance at Hancock Fabrics.  There was just something about the pattern I loved.  The black is actually flocked (raised, velvety texture) on top of the linen-like ground material.  I used my two-seam envelop pillow technique to make this pillow.

You might not believe what the pillow looked like before and you definitely might not believe I actually paid money for this ugly pillow.  I bought the before pillow for $16.99 at HomeGoods.  I picked the ugliest pillow in the place with the best pillow insert.  This giant lumbar pillow has a feather down insert.  It was well worth the $16.99.  The trick is to find a pillow with a zipper closure, because that means it has a separate pillow insert inside.  I just removed the ugly cover and recovered the insert with my new cover.

Did you notice the large framed piece above the bed?  It is one of my favorite pieces.  It is a framed portrait series of my boys playing on our bed.  Our photographer, who has done all the portraits in our home, actually came to our house to capture these images.  Their framer makes this amazing frame, which they call the “Giggle”.  Normally, the letters carved into the mat below the images spell out “giggle”.  We thought that was a bit girly for our boys, so they customized it for us with the word “laugh”.  Our boys make each other laugh constantly and make us laugh, too.  We were also able to choose the frame color and we knew the deep plum would be perfect for above our bed.

I’ll leave you with a few more pictures, which I think show how all those fabrics come together to make a room.  The various colors and patterns all work in harmony.  I didn’t buy a bed-in-the-bag to achieve this look.  I simply played with color and pattern.  By mixing large, medium, and small scale patterns with shared colors, they all just work together.  The suzani print ties all the colors from the fabrics together in one print.  It even incorporates the golden yellow of our upholstered bed.

Our master bedroom is now the casual, sophisticated haven we were looking for.  It is so nice to feel like the room is put together.  So often we all forget to focus on our own spaces and focus all our energy on the public living spaces.  If you have not already, I urge you to spend time making your own room special.  It is so amazing to wake up to and retire at night to a beautiful space.

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