The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

Founded by two incredible interior designers and entrepreneurs, Mai Elagizy and Sara Soliman, House of Two is the design studio breaking stereotypes and bringing quality into the mix.

Intensely passionate about what they do, Sara and Mai have been dear friends since university, where they both studied interior design. Having worked together in two different companies in Dubai for a decade, they’ve gained a wealth of experience and expertise in interior design. Having dealt with projects all over the world, including the Gulf, the United Kingdom, and Azerbaijan, they decided to bring their expertise back home to Egypt, where they saw both a gap in the market and immense potential for growth given the real estate boom.

When asked about the primary issue with interior design in Egypt, Mai and Sara point out the problem of consistency. We’ve seen too many companies start off strong and lose their edge and quality over the years, which is something that these entrepreneurs lament. So, taking matters into their own hands, they’ve built a studio that provides the quality consumers need and pride themselves on their attention to detail. When thinking of interior design, most people tend to think of high-quality results as a luxury far out of the average person’s budget. This is a stereotype that these women are adamant about changing. Through their own studio, they’ve provided consumers with a place where they can get the best quality at a reasonable price.

While they work all over the region in areas such as retail, hospitality, and food & beverage, their work in Egypt focuses primarily on residential projects. They see no creative limit to bringing a client’s vision into reality and even believe creativity to be a love language. As firm believers that the beauty of our surroundings affects our mood and overall quality of life, especially at home, they consider themselves almost as therapists.

Successful as they have been, it hasn’t come without its fair share of challenges. In their incredible effort to bring clients the best quality, they sometimes find themselves hindered due to being undermined as young women. While the general impression is that interior design is a female-dominated industry, reality points to the opposite. That is no inherent problem, although Sara and Mai find themselves extremely frustrated at being consistently undermined because of age and gender. They’ve come to grow from that experience, finding the need to be assertive. They constantly need to show people they work with that being young does not mean they lack experience (their portfolios alone prove that) and that being a woman is not a reason to be taken less seriously. After all, their work speaks for itself.

Great success always comes from ambition and desire to do better, attributes that perfectly fit Mai and Sara. At the moment, their biggest goal is to expand their company and become a one-stop shop for everything you could possibly need when developing a space. Meaning that they would not only provide the design but also get involved with lighting, artwork, branding, and absolutely everything a client might need without having to go to multiple consultants, all the while catering to their needs depending on the kind of project, whether it be residential, commercial, or hospitality. They put clients’ needs above everything else, which is the mark of a great entrepreneur.