More light

Most of our furnishings were inherited from the frenchman from whom we bought the house. The exception were the sofas in the downstairs morning room. You may recall that the living room had the most uncomfortable western style suite that I complained about but only thought to replace them 2 or 3 years ago. The morning room had little furniture; some local outdoor type rattan sets we use on the terrace and the guest bedroom and lots of pots which we now use outside for plants. So, wishing for comfortable seating I dashed of to KITEA to get some smart western style sofas in what turned out to be faux leather. It was a terrible buy. As imports they were incredibly expensive  by moroccan standards. So much so I had assumed they were real leather. They have got infected by some sort of fungus growing on the surface which is both ugly and causes the top layer of the covering to come off. The smaller of the pair was so bad that it could no longer be concealed by a  throw so we donated it to somebody who was capable of making proper loose covers (the frame and structure was sound) and substituted  a traditional solution of a base and mattress made to measure for the space. We didn't bother getting fitted covers just used the throw and then used it to show off my peacock cushion which I think works quite well.

As it had been made to measure we were able to make it short enough for a table at each end. We kept my mother-in-law's malay brass tray table which her mother had brought back from Malaya when they returned as a small child and widowed mother in the 1920s but commissioned a traditional painted table for the other end which I think looks well although it cost more than twice as much as the new "sofa". 

The room had always had thin turquoise curtains which I quite liked because of the colour at both the windows and arch to the hall. The frenchman or his wife had been very fond of curtains, making holes in the tajliq to have them over the beds and generally over any window. We took down the ones in the living room a couple of years ago when we realised that the poles prevented the windows opening. When we went to the teachers new house I realised that opening the high street windows allowed a draft to come through  and out into the patio and up the central void. Traditional air conditioning built in. 
We have friends coming next week and realised we did not remember ever washing the turquoise curtains so we thought we better had but when they were down there was so much more light in the room we decided not to bother..It's north-facing so you don't have to screen the sun out.
We did need at least one curtain to screen the wash area from the room. We bought a ready made one which was the right colours but the standard 2 m length which is about 30 cm short but it will have to do for now and cannot be a pair because they only had one.