Villa 5 was finished, so it was time to dress it up and fire the imagination a little. It can be difficult to envisage an empty house with the benefit of warmth and furnishings. We wanted to capture some images that would nudge that imagination into working and bring the villa alive.

In order to achieve this we brought on board renowned British photographer, Suzanne Porter, who is based in Marrakech, and her prefered local stylist Cassie Karinsky, whose fantastic eye for detail and style is highly valued by Suzanne, and therefore us.

The local businesses of Marrakech were absolutely amazing and helped us enormously by lending their precious products and creations especially for the shoot. I cannot say a big enough THANK YOU to them all!

Our first stop was to source the rugs we would need. Brothers Soufiane and Smile have a veritable priceless stock of beautiful rugs and mats sourced from moroccan artisans and those farther afield. This was the stunning Beni Ourain rug that we chose for the bedroom shot, and you can just see the equally beautiful Mauritanian mat that it is sitting on, that eventually graced the floor of the living room.

Soufiane and Smile were also kind enough to lend us the sequined Handira (Berber wedding blankets) that were used on the roof terrace and the Koran tablets used on the bedside table. Leather designer and manufacturer, Youssef Bennani, lent us the gorgeous leather poufs - one of which i have since bought because i loved it so much!

The beautiful handmade fabrics used on the bed, the roof terrace and some of the cushions were supplied by Florence Teillet. For anyone interested in unique, quality textiles, Florence’s showroom in Sidi Ghanem will definitely have you captivated. All are made in Morocco to Florence’s designs and are used in some of the chicest of Marrekch riads.

Another local textile designer, Marion Verdier, owner of Atelier Nihal, supplied us with countless fabulous cushions (my favourite being the orange and silver!). Marion’s products are bespoke and are again designed and produced here in Morocco.

Mustapha Blaoui is famous in Marrakech for his incredible stock of Moroccan products and furniture and he was magnanimous to let us run wild and raid his treasure trove for lanterns, mirrors, candelabras, bedside cabinets, and other useful items

The well-known home decor boutique, Scenes de Lin, (in Gueliz, Marrakech), came up trumps with beautiful bed linen, towels and bathroom products. We were spoilt for choice and coveted most of the shop’s stock!

And last, but by no means least, my thanks to Lara Cleminson who kindly allowed us to sneak into her Riad, Dar Missiana, early one morning, and load a selection of furniture onto hand-pulled cart, to be spirited away to Ouirgane for the weekend.

Thank you again. All of you. For bringing our villa alive.

Contact details:

Suzanne Porter, Photographer:  www.suzanneporter.com / info@suzanneporter.com

Cassie Karinsky, Stylist:  cassiek00@hotmail.com / +212 (0) 663 775 690

Soufiane & Smile, Carpets:  zarib_mohid@hotmail.com

Florence Teillet, Handmade textiles:  atwlflo@yahoo.fr / +212 (0) 661 225 905

Atlelier Nihal, Handmade textiles:  atelier.nihal@hotmail.fr / +212 (0) 671 160 162

Mustapha Blaoui, Moroccan home products:  +212 (0) 524 385 240 / Arset Aouzale         No.142, Bab Doukkala, Marrakech Medina

Scenes de Lin, Home decor:  www.scenes-de-lin.com

Youssef Bennani, Leather designer:  bennani21@hotmail.com / +212 (0) 661 666 324

Lara Cleminson, Dar Missiana & Koubba (Events):  www.koubba.com

We recently dressed up the completed Villa 5 in allsorts of local finery. The local businesses of Marrakech were incredibly kind and helped bring the first L’Amandier villa to life (more on that in a separate post). We were all pretty impressed with how elegant the villa looked and Nick, our architect, even came over all emotional at seeing his vision realised. We’d love to hear your views…

Photography: Suzanne Porter (www.suzanneporter.com)

I’ve been slack and am long overdue for a blog post. To be fair, I have actually been really very busy, along with the rest of the team. Does that count as an excuse for the lack of blogging?

But the good news is…we have finished Villa 5! Can I tell you that, due to deadlines and the complication of Ramadan, it proved to be a little like pushing an unruly elephant up a very steep hill whilst armed only with a chopstick? But we made it and the villa looks fabulous. We have final snags to attend to, but I can give you a sneak preview of the final look and feel of the L’Amandier villas…

The interior courtyard…

The bouh (alcoved seat) within the internal courtyard…

The view to the internal garden from bedroom one…

…and from bedroom two

Ensuite bathroom…

Fully fitted kitchen…

The open-plan living/dining room…

The roof terrace…

The pergola on the roof terrace will have canvas sails for shade and plenty of cushions…

The garden terrace with the plunge pool runs the length of the living/dining room and the kitchen…

The finished villa. Next step; the garden…

The vision of L’Amandier has now become a reality. It has a wamth and a feeling of tranquility. A simplicity enhanced with beautiful details. A feeling of the inside flowing out and the outside flowing in. Contrasting yet harmonious colours and textures. It is hard to capture the true feel of the villa through photos, but I hope they serve as a good starting point.

My trusty old point and shoot camera has been busy capturing the progression on site aswell as images of Morocco in general. To see all the images (which are constantly being updated), go the the galleries section on the right.

Deadlines are definitely a moving target in Morocco. If you can run fast enough to catch hold of its tail to rein it in, you are doing well. When I asked a tradesman this week, ‘which day will you be finished?’, his helpful answer was that, ‘in Morocco, one, two, or four days late is not a problem’.  And that is on a good day.

We have a deadline to finish the first L’Amandier Villa. The good news is that I think we have hold of its tail. Just about. With the finishing of the first villa, there was always going to be hold-ups and it was going to prove a learning curve for most of us.  Interpreting the UK plans and replicating them in Moroccan reality has thrown up a couple of issues, which have been reviewed and resolved. This takes time; especially if you are not prepared to compromise on quality. But we are almost there.

I seem to have spent most of the week on site trying to keep up with progress, which is flying at quite a rate now.

Most of the tadelakt is finished…

The living room and kitchen floors are down…

The kitchen is being installed…

The sanitaryware and marble is being installed…

The iron doors are being painted and the glass fitted…

The exterior plaster colour is being applied…

The interior wooden doors have been delivered ready to be hung and stained black…

I’m sure I have detected a few more grey hairs appearing, but we’ll put those down to increasing experience and wisdom….right?

Most houses, villas, riads, or apartments in Morocco (in my experience) do not have gas. Generally, the gas hob is connected to a gas bottle stashed in a nearby cupboard in the kitchen. This will also be the case for the L’Amandier Villas. It’s not a problem in the slightest and not really something you think about. Apart from possible forward thinking to have a spare full bottle in case of it running out at inopportune moments…

Hmmm.

Good advice.

I should listen to myself. It was a cheese sandwich for me last night…

It was actually the first time I had run out of gas. I discovered that I needed a spanner to release the bottle. I also discovered that a spanner is not something the guardian of the apartment block has. I hoped the provider of gas bottles would have one. The first shop I tried was out of gas supplies for the day. As a result, I unexpectedly discovered a small market only 5 minutes walk away from my home. Here was a guy with fresh looking vegetables neatly displayed and a rack of gas bottles. Hurrah!

He would not give me a full bottle without the immediate exchange of the empty bottle. The lack of a spanner had obviously prevented my bringing the empty. The compromise was that he gave me a gas-bottle-carrying-trolley and a shiny new spanner. I set off for home in the heat, pulling the trolley behind me.

Having wrestled the empty bottle free of attachments and into the trolley, I retraced my steps back to the market. Satisfied that I had an exchange bottle, the guy sold me a full one. Into the trolley it went. I never realised how heavy gas is! Now kerbs and steps became an issue on the way back to my apartment. I enlisted the help of the guardian to get the bottle into my building and confidently rode the lift, whilst pouring with sweat. Did I mention that it is hot here at the moment?? And then my confidence got knocked off its perch and I’m sad to admit that the plastic security seal defeated me.  After taking a moment to swallow my pride, I trudged downstairs, put on my best helpless smile and appealed to the guardian and his friends who were sitting under a tree; no doubt putting the world to rights.

How could they resist? I was expertly connected within a couple of minutes.

Once more I put on my flip flops and hauled the trolley and the spanner back to the market. And finally home again. I don’t mind telling you I had to put the air conditioning on and lie down to recover for a full 15 minutes.

Just down the road from L’Amandier Villas, in the small village of Marigha, is Ksar Shama. It’s a lovely guesthouse nestled in a grove of olive trees with a beautiful swimming pool that definitely saved me from over-heating the other day. As I swam a couple of laps of the pool, under the bridge and through the cascades, I reflected, once again, on how lucky I am to work in the Ouirgane area.

The staff were all very hospitable and kindly took me on a tour of the hotel, even though I looked like I had been dragged through a hedge backwards and was, quite frankly, very dusty.  The hotel has 17 rooms and 4 suites. All are built in traditional Moroccan style, using pise (adobe), tadelakt and natural wood, and all are comfortable, air conditioned, and decorated with Moroccan fabrics.

The chefs prepare traditional Moroccan and Berber food using locally grown produce and for the winter months (hard to imagine at the moment!), there is a huge fireplace in the lounge area.

I even inspected the spa - on your behalf - which has a very steamy hammam. I popped my head before really thinking that idea through. I was already near to cooking point in the heat of the day and had to withdraw rapidly. There are also massage and treatment rooms, a sauna, and everything you could need really. It is not the most luxurious spa I have ever visited, but it is clean and perfect for a spot of pampering.

For more information on Ksar Shama, please visit their website at: http://www.ksarshama.com/