 There are hotel suites and there are hotel suites. Whilst some pretenders are merely bedrooms with a small seating area, the likes of Malmaison make far more of it than the simple dictionary definition of 'a connected series of rooms to be used together'. Rock and roll, sexy, sumptuous - call them what you will, but the five new suites at the Birmingham boutique hotel are pure design lovers' Viagra - and Lauren Taylor is the brains behind all the, ahem, excitement. One of six designers who oversee the look and feel of new build or refurbished rooms for the group of hotels which encompasses both Malmaison and Hotel du Vin, Lauren reveals some of the ideas, challenges and concepts behind some of Birmingham's coolest rooms to rest your head. Not that you'll want to spend much time sleeping in the Mailbox Mal suites, which cost around £300,000 to refurbish - there's too much to see and do. Whilst the Sorting Office, Mail Room, Spaghetti Junction and Post Box suites are elegant, stylish and chic, the £500 a night Penny Black is Malmaison's jewel in the crown. Over five main rooms, it features four televisions, three WCs, a king size four poster bed, roll top bath and walk-in rainwater shower, cinema room, steam room and massage table. You won't want to leave. A great deal of time and attention has been put into not only the designs but the installation; whereas the current refurbishment of standard rooms at Mal in Manchester has progressed at a floor every three or four weeks, the five suites in Birmingham took five weeks to install. True to the Malmaison colour scheme ethos, the Penny Black is dark and sultry, with dark plum velvet carpet, floral patterned wallpaper, fuchsia voiles and huge black curtains that block out every shard of light. The furniture and doors are black lacquered, with grey, silver and pink accessories punctuating the rooms. Lauren says: "I think Malmaison has its own style; we always try and work to that style but at the same time take into account the latest trends - that's why we've gone for the more floral wallpaper strong colours; I think Malmaison is about strong colours, very moody, very cosy warm feeling. "We're quite free with what we want to do but it has to be in a Mal style, a little bit quirky. "We've used three different colour schemes - chocolate and red in Post Box and Spaghetti Junction, purple and navy in Sorting Office and Mail Room and then a separate purple, black and silver scheme in Penny Black. "I think minimalism has been in for such a long time, now the trend with wallpaper and fabrics is going more to the florally direction and we've really taken that up." She adds: "We've got a big library of fabrics; we've always got reps coming in updating our library, it's kind of what's in at the moment and then do something a little bit wild and quirky." Lauren says: "Because of all the suites being named after the [Royal Mail] sorting room, we've tried to include artwork in the room that reflects the name of the suites; it's quite important that it's actually quite impacting artwork - we've got one that's called Spaghetti Junction and there's some fantastic images of Spaghetti Junction all lit up at night. "We accessorise all our hotels, every project we try and draw things from everywhere; we don't like to use the high street too often, but sometimes it comes to the point that it just suits the look. "Apart from Penny Black, the main thing that we focused on was making the bathrooms bigger, so we put in massive walk-in rainwater showers and big roll top baths and we kind of divided them up so the shower and the WC were separate to the main bath itself. "The biggest obstacle there was just making sure that with all the plumbing we weren't struggling to where we were moving it - apart from that I think everything was quite straightforward."
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