Lisbon Boutique Hotel Mood Board — Casa dos Arcos

An interiors mood board for a 22-room Lisbon hotel: lobby, rooms, azulejo tiles, lighting, signage, two palettes and a brief for the architect.

Updated

This board was put together for the fit-out of a 22-room hotel in an 1890s merchant's house in Alfama. It is laid out the way the work is split between the interiors team and the architect. Before choosing any pictures we fixed one hour of light: late afternoon, with west sun across the courtyard and the limestone going warm. That way every photograph reads as the same building on the same day. The lobby section opens with a photo grid. A hero shot of the arcade from the street sits over a strip of the parts of the house that stay: the terracotta floor, the vaulted reception, the stair, and an old pharmacy cabinet we used as the reference for the desk joinery. A note beside it lists what is kept and why. A palette pulls the stone, cork, walnut and brass out of those photos, and a saved link to the Jerónimos cloister holds the arch rhythm we want the arcade to echo. A street recording of the tram sits there too, because guests hear the lobby before they see it. Rooms holds the decisions that repeat twenty-two times: shutters, undyed linen, a plastered niche instead of a headboard, pink marble in the baths, and a short clip of a curtain moving in the west light. Tiles and materials has a second palette and a short set of rules, mainly that patterned tile only stays where it already exists. Light and signage turns the mood into numbers, such as colour temperatures, sconce heights and letter sizes, so the electrician and the sign painter can price from it, and a clip of leaf shadow on a west wall shows the light we are protecting. The last section is written for the architect. It holds a one-page brief, a finishes schedule, the notes from the site walk and a checklist of what still has to be sourced. A folder of recce alternates is kept off the main board. If you are building your own boutique hotel mood board, the habit worth copying is to pair every picture with a decision someone can act on. Photos by Rafael Rodrigues, Jessi Juli, Leah, Nehir Yiğenoğlu Öztürk, cottonbro studio, Lucas Gramatica, Kate L, Saya Omar, https://kaboompics.com/, Dominika Gregušová, Magda Ehlers, Jonathan Borba, Plato Terentev, Max Avans, Thiago José Amaral, Jose Cruz, Minsu B, Christina & Peter, Wendy Wei and Ivett M on Pexels. Sound: "Lisboa Elevador da Bica" by Unknown (Public domain) on Wikimedia Commons.

A × visual grid — Lobby + arcade (5 images) — view it on the board above.

A stunning view over Lisbon with the Cristo Rei statue in warm sunset light, reflecting architectural charm.
A traditional Italian window with green shutters on a pastel wall, capturing classic European architecture.
A weathered balcony with rustic shutters and plants in terracotta pots.

▶ Curtain, room 4 (plays on the board above)

Room 4, west light
Room 4, west light
Bed linen, undyed
Bed linen, undyed

Second choices from the Alfama walk and the tile yards. Off the main board, but keep them.

Rooms — 22 keys

22 keys over three floors, five types (see finishes schedule).
- West rooms keep full-height shutters, painted, not stained
- Undyed linen, two pillows, no throws
- Headboard is a lime-plastered niche, not upholstery
- Estremoz pink in the baths, honed, 20 mm
- One chair, one lamp, one hook rail
Balcony ironwork stripped and painted back to the original green.

French doors, balcony
French doors, balcony
Bath, Estremoz marble
Bath, Estremoz marble

Lobby — stone + cork

  • Lioz limestone — #e6dcc8
  • Lime wash — #f2ede3
  • Hall terracotta — #b5603e
  • Cork, toasted — #8a5a3b
  • Pharmacy walnut — #4a3426
  • Brass, unlacquered — #b08d57

Lobby — what stays

Back to the 1890s shell. Keep:
- hall terracotta, lift and relay the cracked third
- the stair, lioz treads as found, no nosing strips
- the reception vault, lime wash only, nothing cut into it
From the Jerónimos cloister: the arch rhythm and the colour the stone goes at 5pm. The arcade gets the same, nothing applied to it.
Desk is joinery, not furniture: walnut with glazed cabinets, like the old pharmacies on Rua da Rosa.

Jerónimos Monastery

♪ Tram 28 at the corner — 1:15 · 0 BPM · M4A (plays on the board above)

Tile + glaze

  • Azulejo cobalt — #1f4e8c
  • Tin-glaze white — #f4f1e8
  • Relief green — #3e7a5e
  • Ochre wash — #d9a441
  • Calçada basalt — #2f2f33

Lighting — numbers

2700K throughout, dimming to 2200K after 21:00.
- Corridors: brass sconces at 1.8 m, every 3 m, no ceiling light
- Reception vault: uplight from the cornice only
- Rooms: bedside pair plus one reading lamp, no downlights
- Arcade: lanterns back on the six original hooks
- Bar: low pendants, 900 mm above the counter
Sconces max 5 W. The plaster does the rest.

Street lamp, dusk
Street lamp, dusk

▶ Leaf shadow, west wall (plays on the board above)

Finishes schedule

  • Area
  • Floor
  • Walls
  • Ceiling
  • Hall + reception
  • Terracotta 20×20, relaid
  • Lime wash, ochre
  • Vault, lime wash
  • Stair
  • Lioz treads, as found
  • Blue azulejo dado, kept
  • Lime wash
  • Corridors
  • Cork tile, 6 mm
  • Lime wash, ochre
  • Lime wash, white
  • Rooms
  • Pine boards, oiled
  • Lime plaster, white
  • Flat, lime wash
  • Baths
  • Estremoz pink, honed
  • Tin-glaze white 10×10
  • Lime, breathable paint
  • Bar
  • Terracotta, reclaimed
  • Green relief tile, front
  • Cork panels
Stair dado, blue
Stair dado, blue

Tiles — rules

- Blue-and-white only where it already is: stair dado, courtyard well. No new pattern tile in rooms.
- Green relief tile on the bar front and nowhere else, 14×14, match from Viúva Lamego or a reclaim yard.
- Baths: plain tin-glaze white, handmade, 10×10, lime grout.
- Calçada at the door runs 3 m into the hall, then stops hard at the terracotta.

Calçada at the door
Calçada at the door
Entrance portal
Entrance portal

Still to find

[x] Reclaimed terracotta 20×20, 50 m²
[x] Cork tile for corridors, 6 mm
[x] Bedside lamp, one design for all rooms
[ ] Estremoz pink slab supplier, 22 baths
[ ] Green relief tile match, 14×14, bar front
[ ] Brass sconce sample, 2700K, on the ochre wall
[ ] Balcony ironwork green, paint match

Brief for the architect

The building

Four floors on a corner plot in Alfama, built in the 1890s as a merchant's house, with an arcaded courtyard behind the street front. The stair, the hall vault and most of the ground-floor terracotta survive. The upper floors were split into flats in the 1970s; all of that work comes out.

What it should feel like

A house that has been lived in, not a hotel that has been designed. Guests should notice the light before they notice anything we added. Late afternoon is the reference hour

Cork, raw bark
Cork, raw bark

Signage — lettering

No backlit boxes, no vinyl.
- Name in gold leaf on the fanlight glass, serif caps
- Blade sign on an iron bracket, painted timber, both faces
- Room numbers on one hand-painted tile per door, cobalt on white
- Stair wayfinding in cut brass letters, 60 mm
Sign painter on Rua dos Fanqueiros, quote due 12 Nov.

Lime wash, ochre
Lime wash, ochre

Includes a nested board (open it from the canvas above)