Guest room styling with Cox & Cox

The ongoing redecoration of our house continues slowly but surely. I shared the makeover of one of our two guest rooms a few months ago, and now here’s a peek at the other, which we’ve finally managed to finish.

Even though this room is the bigger of the two, it’s a very odd shape as the former owners carved a corner out of it to form the master-bedroom ensuite. We’ve therefore kept the furniture very simple – just a double divan bed and a couple of bedside tables (one a reclaimed milking stool picked up at a flea market, the other a games table which Chris made as a Design & Technology project at school!).

We’ve used this room to display a collection of photography prints of 19th- and 20th-century Morocco which I picked up in Marrakech a few years ago. We therefore wanted to give it a bit of a North African theme, without going overboard and creating something which would look totally out of place in our otherwise minimal house.

Step forward Cox & Cox and its cotton ‘Maroq’ cushion, which combines pale grey, charcoal and soft pink. It was designed by House of Rym, a homeware label founded by Tunisian duo Rym Tounsi and Zied Youssef, who wanted to combine traditional North African handicrafts with a contemporary, Scandinavian-inspired aesthetic. The woven pattern is a modern interpretation of intricate Moorish tiling, and it fits perfectly into the scheme; there’s also a matching throw, which I’m very tempted to treat myself to!

Other finishing touches in the room include sheer curtains with delicate embroidery that looks a little like Moroccan pom-poms (we’ve also added a black-out blind behind them), a blown-glass bottle (another flea-market find), and a grey linen throw from The Linen Works. And, as with the other bedroom, I’ve added a few little treats to make guests feel at home – a scented candle, some relaxing pillow spray, a carafe of water, a choice of feather or fibre pillows (a must, as one visiting parent prefers one and another the other!), and a few magazines to browse.

So there you go – the finished room. The cat certainly seems to like it, but I’d love to know what you think…

All photography by Abi Dare

Cox & Cox kindly provided a free cushion for this post, but all words and opinions are my own.