Our Eclectic Living & Dining, Room Tour

I have been under a technical spell lately, my laptop and camera have had issues lately- not to mention my car but thats a story for another day- I'm typing this away on my husband's laptop right now. I unfortunately lack all of my photo editing programs and with the issues with my camera the photos turned out less than great to me but since I've promised to share my living room and my painting with you for a very long time…here goes nothing I guess!

p.s: I will add a list of resources towards the bottom of the post so you can know where I bought specific items. If you have any questions post a reply and I will get back to you

Don't get me wrong my husband and I absolutely LOVE our home and take great pride in the way it looks, we take a deep breath in and sigh the moment we walk into our home…I just tend to be…a tight ass perfectionist when it comes to my work/my home/my photos…you get it.

The sight we see when we first get home everyday
I love having an entryway/corridor when we first walk in

The Arabesque mirror, wall sconces, and ceiling pendant are all from Egypt. The lights were a gift from my brother in law and the mirror was from a shop here in Doha. The solid wood shelf was custom made at a carpentry in Doha and stained to match the mirror. 

A print of a hand drawing in ink of a landscape of Jerusalem, Palestine that I purchased a few years before

Front Door view, the flat woven rug is a purchase we made in Morocco on our honeymoon

This is our living / dining room where I spend most of the day when I'm home and where we pretty much do everything as a family as well; folding laundry, watching Tv, playing with Farida, reading books, working on design projects, eating dinner, and entertaining friends and family.

I'm not big on furniture sets, I tend to be very eclectic when designing for myself

We first rented our flat 2 months before our wedding. My husband and I lived separately until we were married and this was our first place together- it was also my first place as I lived at home with my family up until I was married as customary. I'm a Palestinian freelance interior designer- in case you didn't know that- and my husband is an Egyptian personal development coach who works as a training manager at Qatar Airways- again, apologies if this is redundant. We both have very different personalities but we are both loud, love colour, love to travel, love design, and especially love wood- Walnut to be specific, if you can't tell! We've collected several items from our travels and wanted to proudly display these collectables in our home, we wanted our home to reflect both our characters, passions, and cultural heritages as well. Once we found this place we started putting down design ideas, colours, and styles and started executing directly to have our home ready as soon as possible in time for the wedding.

our gallery wall has a a mix of prints of famous paintings by Van Gogh that I picked up at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam a few years back, a photo by a friend of mine of Egypt, a framed inspirational textile that my husband got from Muslim Leaders, a print of a photo that I took of a street sign in Morocco, and a few photos taken by me in Amsterdam. We kept some space towards the bottom for us to add more items as life go on, maybe some art made by Farida!  

I bought these beautiful wall hung planters from a store on Etsy, link in resources. The street sign was of the Yves Saint Laurent street in Marrakech where we spent part of our honeymoon. This is the street were Les Jardains Majorelle where Yves Saint Laurent resided in Morocco, currently there is a museum of his work there and a beautiful botanical garden

The low TV console is an antique Kashmiri piece, the display cabinet is far east colonial

Floating laminate wood flooring were put in to cover the badly grouted and cracked tiles beneath, all of the furniture was purchased, delivered, and assembled before the wedding. Selecting photos, accessories, plants, personal items to display all took place after the wedding, we went on adding little items here and there and taking out some items as well. I love being able to see time change a place and the effect of time on a family and their home.

Everything in there gets used regularly, we aren't saving no china for when the queen visits

Beautiful espresso cups that I got my husband as an anniversary gift from PIP Studio

I don't know why but I can't resist household items, especially china. The Moroccan tea pot is part of a set I got from a visiting bazar here in Doha. The tea cups are from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam

A drum that my husband picked up in Mozambique

Our home design style is very eclectic; it's a mix of modern, antique, multi-culturally ethnic, and universal all at the same time. We wanted our home to be practical, for it to use space in the best way possible for us and meet our needs but for it to also look like a young couple's home..this was our first home and we have all the time in the world to chic/glam it up.

Remember that painting that I raved about, well maybe on Instagram more so than here, but there it is!

It's an oil colours on canvas painting of an aerial view of my husband's village in Egypt, colours and scale were converted for art reasons!

Our beautiful Matryoshka that my parents got us from Moscow lately

Another beautiful purchase from Moscow by my parents. This is a an exact replica of an authentic Faberge egg that was made for the king, The replica is also made by Faberge. 

This is also a vintage Kashmiri piece that we got from a store here in Doha

Behind our sofa is our dining area where we also happen to work from home. A photo by Osama Silwadi of an old house in Palestine hangs above.

A little Palestinian touch with a cross stitched side table cover that was a gift from my grandmother for my future home since before I met my husband, that's what taita does!

Farida's high chair is actually a feeding chair from Mamas & Papas that is fixed to one of our dining chairs, less floor space to be occupied!

An antique traditional clay bowl from Fes, Morocco

A view at the entry of the inner corridor

inner corridor leading to powder room, bathroom, and our three bedrooms

On top lays a crystal bowl- a wedding gift of ours- some hats from Aswan, our wedding guest book, a painting from Amsterdam, and some of my personal sketches

So I've finally managed to post this, I will be posting it again now on FB, Instagram and all of my other channels. I'm really excited about sharing my home with you and I hope that it inspires you and goes to show that you do not need to own your home to make it your own and that you do not need to spend a fortune to have a beautiful home either. Thank you for following me and for checking out this post. If you have any questions do not forget to post it in the reply section..peace out!



Resources:

Paint Color: NP A30.2 National Paints
Sofa: Scarlett Sofa from Origins Living
Rug: Stockholm Rug
Swivel Chairs: Home Center
Leather and solid wood brown armchair and Ottoman: The One
Dining Set: Stockholm from IKEA
Kashmiri Antique Side board & Low Console: Richi at Landmark
Nesting Tables: IKEA, Stockholm Collection
Shelves: IKEA
Side Tables: ID Design
Display Cabinet: Bombay
Wall Planters: Light & Ladder on Etsy
Corridor two cabinets: IKEA

My Structured Bohemian Bedroom, Room Tour

I finally bring to you a well over due room tour, my own bedroom's that is since I've promised a while back that I will be sharing before and after's from my own home and that I'll share the overall design of the apartment 1 room tour at a time, I've already shared Farida's nursery, my 15 months old daughter, and this is the second room tour that I share.

My husband and I started looking at the design of the bedroom before our wedding, more than two years ago, We first worked on the layout, we had a great big niche in the bedroom that we decided to close off completely as a custom closet and we got it fitted, wall to wall and floor to ceiling and that was the best thing we did as our room is small as is our apartment and we try to make use of every single inch in it. The bed is actually bigger in reality than on the plan, and we ended up putting two dressers side by side instead of one because we needed the extra storage.

Then we started looking at colors, texture, and styles. We wanted something dreamy, has a little glamour chicness to it, not too pretentious, and has something grounding. Our wedding accent color was purple but it isn't why we chose purple for this room and it wasn't my sole choice, in fact my husband asked for lavender to be our paint color and that's where we started with our color scheme 

 Then we looked online and at different stores for furniture, hardware, finishes, and furnishings and we've put it all together to achieve this dream- what I would call "structured bohemian"- bedroom that we call ours.

And here is a more detailed photo tour of our bedroom

the closet was custom made to fit into the existing niche

I ordered designer brass pulls for the closets from Lewis Dolin, they shipped them to Doha directly

The beautiful hooks shabby wooden carved plate is from Zara Home 

The wallpaper was a limited edition online only purchase that was available at Anthropologie, I purchased the last few rolls they had left and they shipped them over to Doha. The bed was custom made with no headboard or foot board at a local shop in Doha. The beautiful bed cover that adds amazing texture and color to the room is a purchase we got on our honeymoon in Morocco. We love adding pieces to our home that we've purchased on trips, they add character to our home and remind us of the beautiful time we had there.  

The glass coasters and photo frame are wedding gifts from my cousin

The night stands are also from the Ikea Malm collection, I added these brass and mother of pearl handles from Anthropologie to customize them. The table lamps are from Ikea as well.

These two Malm dressers and makeup table are from Ikea but are customized by me be adding one of the pulls I purchased for the closet to the table and hand painting the gaps between the drawers in antique gold. You can check out the tutorial here. We added this piece of tapestry to temporary cover up where the old window style AC was fixed after we've replaced it with a split unit AC. I will have to revisit this part of the room as I'm not 100% happy with the current look of the tapestry in the room. 

The curtains were custom made in synthetic silk with an antique weave texture. They have a french pleat and are hung right under the crown molding and are 15cm longer than the wall in height so that they break nicely at the floor as they do. The mirror is from Life Style and it's a cheap replica of the famous Venetian mirrors

I have a few memorabilia from our wedding setup in nice vignettes on top of the dressers

I love to mix and match not only furniture in a room but also textures and in this case bedding, don't be afraid of mixing different colors and patterns within a room, they enrich it and add depth to a room

 Your bedroom, or apartment, or home for that matter do not need to be big and/or cost a ton for them to be beautiful. All they need is to reflect your personality and what you'd like to feel in them.

I hope you liked this room tour and the before & after's. I'd love to hear what you think and answer any questions you might have in the comments below.