Moroccan-style floor seating and floor couches

The range takes two routes. Four Moroccan-style floor couches, Atlas Cotton, Atlas Shag Wool, Atlas Stripe and Atlas Diamond, come in set lengths with fixed designs, while a sedari-style salon is cut to your walls in the same atelier as our Arabic floor sofa sets.

Every length is about 27.5 in (70 cm) deep with a 6 in (15 cm) seat cushion, and the size on a couch always names its length, never its thickness. A wall much longer than one couch is usually better served by two couches side by side than by searching for one long piece, which keeps each couch easy to move when the room is rearranged for guests.

The real difference lies in how a room is used, because a Moroccan-style couch is one low seat that settles against any open stretch of wall, while a sedari-style salon lines the room wall to wall and gathers everyone into one conversation. One suits a reading corner, the other a room built for long evenings.

In many Moroccan homes the salon is lined with low banquettes, often called sedari, with firm mattresses on top and cushions along the wall, so that family and guests can sit side by side around the room. Our atelier builds that idea from foam seats cut to your wall lengths, about 27.5 in (70 cm) deep, and a 16 in (40 cm) seat sits close to a traditional salon and about level with a regular sofa.

No single seat piece is longer than about 75 in (190 cm), so a long wall is made from two or more joined cushions. What I notice in these rooms is how the seating does the decorating, leaving the walls clear for a lamp or a tray of glasses. The majlis layouts page shows how an L, a U or a full room is measured. Tradition is not a museum. It is a row of cushions people actually sit on.

The covers on these couches are handmade in Morocco and travel separately from their foam inserts, which go into their covers once both parcels have arrived. Each cover gives the same low seat a different character, from flat and crisp to deep and soft.

• Atlas Cotton: a flat cotton weave with fine lines, in beige, gray, green, terracotta, red or mustard
• Atlas Shag Wool: a deep shag pile in black, beige or gray, for a seat that feels like a rug
• Atlas Stripe: crossing lines and cord stitching on black, navy or mustard, or cream with black lines
• Atlas Diamond: lozenge lines on black, beige or navy, with a long round bolster on the shag version

The diamond line on Atlas Diamond echoes the lozenges often woven into Amazigh rugs, and the shag covers borrow the deep, soft pile of Beni Ourain-style rugs, so a couch and a rug in the same family can share one quiet palette.

A single couch works best against a wall in a reading corner, a small living room or a guest room, because its back pillows are loose and need a firm surface behind them. In many homes it ends up beside the tea tray, at a height where the pot can be passed along the row without anyone getting up, and that is usually where the evening settles.

A couch order starts from the length and cover you choose, and because the Moroccan line is made and packed separately from our other sets, ask for its current schedule when you order. Custom orders start with a layout plan for your approval. Production time depends on your layout and the season — ask us for the current schedule. If you are weighing a couch against a full salon, what shapes a majlis quote explains what changes between the two, and how to order a custom majlis walks through each step.

1. Send your walls
2. We draw the layout
3. You approve, then we cut

No rug comes with the Moroccan-style couches, which arrive as a seat cushion with its back and small pillows. Laying your own flat-woven or shag rug underneath is part of the look, so choose its size once the couch length is settled.

A Moroccan-style couch is made to lean against a wall or another firm surface, because the back pillows are loose and there is no frame to hold them upright. In an open-plan room, place it against a wall or a sturdy low piece of furniture rather than in open floor.

A salon made to your walls can be built with a 16 in (40 cm) seat, about the height of a regular sofa and close to a traditional Moroccan salon. Any layout can be made at that height, either entirely in foam or with foam seats on a wooden frame.