Oriental furnishings: Living like in 1001 Nights – Furniture, Cushions and Deco with the Oriental Touch

Oriental furnishings – This style has its roots in Morocco and is anything but mainstream. Rich colors and oriental patterns make every room something special. Let your home become a spiritual place with the help of oriental flair. This is especially exotic fabrics and room scents, whether caused by candles or incense sticks. We show you what the oriental style of furnishing is all about and how you can bring a little bit of the Orient into your own four walls. Let us inspire you! Click here to go back to the overview: Furnishing styles.

Oriental furnishings: Furniture, decoration and lamps á la Bollywood?

Bollywood movies have cult factor, so why not the oriental interior? In oriental countries, the hospitality and the family is in the foreground and exactly that is also reflected in the interior design. The friendly and bright colors make every room look inviting. The oriental interior design stands out from other interior styles because of its extravagance. A room in oriental style seems almost overloaded, but that is exactly what makes the style. In the following, I’ll show you how you can interpret the oriental flair in a modern way, so that your room doesn’t look too cluttered. But first, here is a little video to get a feel for what is important in the oriental style.

Typically oriental: bright colours, special fabrics & mix of patterns

The Paisley pattern is one of the most common oriental patterns. The pattern can be found on decorative items, furniture and clothing. In addition to the Paisley pattern, there is also a range of other oriental patterns that appear in the interior design. Many patterns are mixed with each other, so an exciting and diverse interior is created.

Are you also interested in fashion? Then let yourself be inspired by the Oriental Fashion Show Haute Couture.

The patterns are accompanied by bright and vivid colors. So if you want to decorate your living room oriental use mainly intense colors, such as: Pink, red, orange, brown, blue or purple. These colors look especially good when decorating the interior. Cushions, curtains, carpets or blankets are best suited for the implementation of colour in the room. But also a single armchair or oriental stools, so-called poufs, are suitable to bring the color and the pattern in oriental style in the apartment.

Oriental materials: Persian carpets, woven fabrics & silk

There are many materials that are typical for an oriental interior. Especially easy to realize the oriental style by using textiles. Here are mainly used: cotton, silk, organza or brocade as textiles. Another must when talking about oriental materials that should be brought in an interior design is fragrant wood, which is used in furniture. This scented wood is cedar wood which brings a pleasant oriental fragrance to one’s home. Other popular materials are: Leather, glass or mosaic tiles. To give a room the shine and splendor one uses gold and silver, which provide for refinement of individual furniture or decoration.

• Woven fabrics
• Leather
• Glass
• Tiles / Mosaic
• Unmachined metal / sheet metal & copper

Oriental architecture: arches, columns & ornaments – oriental flair

Oriental architecture has a long tradition. When one thinks of oriental, one first thinks of magnificent mosques, which stand out from the dull European architecture due to their squiggles and colors. Typical of oriental houses are the curved arches and columns, reminiscent of the pomp of Arab palaces. High ceilings, usually complemented by a vault, make the house seem particularly spiritual and imposing. Another stylistic element of the architecture is the use of certain decorative forms, such as geometric ornaments, floral motifs and caligraphic inscriptions. Among the most popular oriental buildings are:

• Sheikh Zayid Mosque – historical monument of the Arab world
• Sultan Ahmed Mosque in Istanbul – a must-see of Arab culture
• Alhambra – an Arab monument in the middle of Europe

Distribution of the interior style – Europe, Asia and Co.

The Orient comprises the Middle East, i.e. Arab countries and part of North Africa. With the Orient, one associates the tale of 1001 Nights and the Orient. If you travel to Arab countries, you will mainly encounter the Oriental style of furnishing. The style is very special and therefore probably not as widespread as, for example, the simple Scandinavian style. It takes courage but also skill to implement the ethno chic in your own home.

Mostly you can find the style also with Arab families who have emigrated and remain true to your traditional furnishings here. In addition to the Arab culture, amusement parks or hotels are often inspired by the furnishing style. The Orient is known for its numerous hours of sunshine and it is exactly this flair of sun, but also culture and tradition that the amusement parks or hotels want to implement in the interior design of the rooms or theme worlds. Here, one usually experiences how it must feel to reside in Arabian palaces or Moroccan riads.

Interior design Orient: Living room, bedroom & Co.

Oriental interior design can be both classic and modern. The most important rooms in the house are those that are used by the whole family. For this reason, in the common rooms you can find a lot of traditional patterns and materials that reflect the culture and also religious details, because religion has a very high value in oriental countries and shapes the life of each individual.

Living room: seat cushions, poufs and sofa offer space for guests & family

The living room is the place where family life takes place, parties are held and guests are received. That is exactly why the living room must bring the qualities: a lot of space and a vivid, traditional interior. Especially the seating is in the foreground. So you need a large couch, with enough seating space, matching armchairs and the traditional poufs, which do not take up much space and guarantee seating for everyone. However, in Arab countries it is also common to sit on cushions, so you are very close to the floor. To match the low seating, you also need to buy a table that has a lot of surface area and is close to the floor, so that the people sitting on the cushions or on the poufs can also use the table.

Besides the furniture, the accessories are also important in an oriental living room. Persian carpets, known from Aladdin with the flying carpet, decorate the floor so that the family and guests do not get cold feet. Carpets radiate cosiness and warmth, with Persian carpets traditional patterns are additionally added to the interior design. For this reason, one often finds tapestries in oriental living rooms. Besides the carpets, the spiritual atmosphere is essential. This is achieved by using colorful cushions with oriental patterns and colorful curtains. Also important are lamps in oriental style, which give the whole room warmth and make the living room more homely. If you now add plants, the living room reminds of an oasis in the desert.

Bedroom: tapestries, oriental patterns & ornate wooden furniture

Oriental furnishings can also be combined in a modern way. If you want to adapt the colourful oriental style to your home, the ornate wooden furniture is in the foreground and the colours in the background. So special attention is paid to the shapes and materials of the furniture. If, for example, you have furnished the rest of the house in classic Scandinavian style or country house style, but want to be bold in the bedroom design and have an eye-catcher in the house, you can easily merge the styles. So you take shapes and materials reminiscent of the Orient and combine them with simple colors that match the rest of the interior, such as: Nude tones, so a beige, or a light grey and pastel shades.

Do you already know the oriental fragrances of Yves Saint Laurent? Let the fragrance take you to the Orient

Besides the right materials, shapes and colors, the decoration in a bedroom with oriental flair is also important. For this, choose oriental hanging lamps made of glass or metal in different shapes and colors that create a cozy atmosphere. Decorative cushions with oriental patterns are also a must, as well as light curtains or drapes, heavy rugs, mirrors, lanterns and tapestries.

Kitchen from the Orient: porcelain, colorful tiles, tableware and more

You can easily decorate your existing kitchen in oriental style. The main ingredients here are: matching accessories, matching spices and patterns. Since the typical, oriental patterns are particularly in demand, you can also bring them into your kitchen. How about cool tiles in paisley pattern, or a nice carpet, which beautifies the boring kitchen front? That’s exactly what you need to create the first basic building blocks for furnishing the kitchen in oriental style.

Besides matching patterns, the decoration of the kitchen is especially important. Who can’t imagine the scent of a Moroccan market? It smells of very different aromatic and oriental spices and exactly these, you should also present in your kitchen. Besides the spices, silverware and trays are essential, accompanied by ornate glass jars, pitchers and mugs. To give it all that certain something, add a lamp in oriental design to the kitchen, which embodies the flair perfectly and brings it into your now oriental kitchen.

Oriental style bathroom: beauty tradition, hamam & mosaic

Besides the main rooms of a house, there is also the possibility of decorating the bathroom in an oriental style. What many people do not know is that beauty care in the Orient already brings a long tradition, which is why the appropriate design of the bathroom is all the more important. This tradition is still celebrated today through the classic hamam, where a special bathing ceremony is performed in the form of a steam bath and massage with soap lather.

By using towels and bath mats in bold colors, you can feel the oriental flair. Use oriental patterns to decorate the walls: Mosaic tiles, mirrors with ornate oriental wooden frames and lamps in classic oriental style, which will instantly transport you to the world of 1001 nights. To complete the interior design, create onion-shaped protrusions in the walls where you can place decorative items that will complete the design of the room.