We took a week-long vacation in Casablanca, Morocco for a wedding – that was more than 4 years ago – and ever since I’ve been searching for my own moroccan area rug inspired directly by the ones we had adorning our hotel room.

The Moroccan influence was just kicking off in the states at the time, but prices on quality vintage products quickly climbed, climbed, climbed as the demand increased. Rugs priced out of my range quickly on ebay, and were priced much too high by US/Canadian/Australian resellers trying to make a quick buck off the boucherouites, beni ouarain, and azilal rugs and other vintage home textiles. Sourcing the larger sized rugs, which are hard enough to find in good condition, became like hunting for the golden ticket. Mass production seemed to take over, with manufacturers like West Elm and NuLoom producing designs intended to mimic the patterns and colors the design community was demanding, but I’ve looked at many of those, read reviews, and decided against in hopes that I’d eventually find something authentic.

When our friends returned to Morocco last year I asked them to search, sending them off with general size guidelines and promises to PayPal them cash as fast as could be, but even within local souks and with their plethora of connections, these friends had a hard time finding exactly what we were looking for – a few cool options, but not quite the coloring or scale I wanted. I continued my search online.

A few months ago, I stumbled upon Bazaarliving.com by chance–I think via Instagram–and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t skeptical about buying overseas from a website that wasn’t mainstream, but I took a chance. The shop, which is based in Marrakech, London and Barcelona, has a limited inventory of unique, authentic rugs available for sale, but the products listed were well-photographed, well-described, and priced affordably compared to all other sources I’ve been monitoring. This was exciting! Many of the rugs were larger in scale too, which is what I wanted – here’s the listing for one I chose. Shortly after I placed my order I received an email directly from a guy named Marc confirming that they received my order, and he sent me the tracking info for my package – totally at ease.

Good things come in small packages; my wedding dress (j.crew via ebay) arrived in a box that was smaller than a toaster (yes, really), and I was just as surprised when the 4.5′ x 7.5′ vintage rug showed up on our porch wrapped into a bundle the size of my torso.

Good packing job, Marc.

The price of the rug was £310.00 or ~$375 USD + shipping, and… total heart-eyes. Perfectly imperfect, which is what you expect with a “rag rug” made of scrap fibers hand-woven into an intricate, free flowing and casually asymmetrical pattern.

I’ve rotated it around into different spots in our house to see where it works best; it’s definitely at home in the bedroom, in a low-traffic spot that I still intend to accessorize with new dressers and a killer floor lamp, but until I get that space adorned it lives in front of our fireplace, serving as a soft little play area for the kids.

The hunt is real, but if you’re also looking for a moroccan rug I definitely recommend looking at bazaarliving.com, as well as ebay (worth noting that US-based and well-respected sfgirlbybay has her own ebay storefront of boucherouites too). The Etsy shop BOUCHEROUITE was also one I kept a close eye on.

P.S. Here’s a quick centimeter to inches conversion tool.