Beyond White Walls: Exploring the Rich World of Coverings

Have you ever stopped to consider the canvas upon which your interior design story unfolds? While furniture and décor often steal the spotlight, it's the backgrounds—the walls, floors, and surfaces—that truly set the stage for your home's character.

In this illuminating tidbit, Tiffany and Scott Woolley dive into the often-overlooked world of "coverings" against the backdrop of the prestigious Coverings show in Orlando. We reveal a startling statistic: 90% of American homes feature simple painted walls, predominantly white, despite the existence of countless innovative alternatives. From revolutionary terrazzo applications that blend historical charm with modern engineering to the vibrant spectrum of colors now available in kitchen appliances, today's design landscape offers unprecedented opportunities for personalization and expression.

We share the story of a design-savvy client who, despite her professional background with Ralph Lauren and innate style sensibility, had always hesitated to embrace bold colors and textures in her home's backdrop elements. This common hesitation highlights a crucial design principle: while furniture and accessories may come and go, coverings represent significant investments that remain with your property, continuously influencing its atmosphere and value. These background elements aren't merely practical necessities—they're powerful storytelling tools that communicate your home's unique character.

Whether you're renovating, building, or simply refreshing your space, don't settle for ordinary when extraordinary options abound. Connect with design professionals who can introduce you to materials beyond what typical showrooms display, and always ask about alternatives. Your home deserves more than white walls—it deserves a thoughtfully crafted backdrop that elevates every element within it. Ready to transform your space through the power of coverings? This is where your design journey truly begins.

Learn more at:
https://twinteriors.com/podcast/

https://scottwoolley.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing iDesign Lab Podcast
• 2:36 he Importance of Background Elements
• 5:15 olor Options and Design Possibilities
• 6:40 ncouraging Design Exploration and Closing

Transcript

Voice Over: 0:00

This is iDesign Lab, a podcast where creativity and curiosity meet style and design. Curator of interiors, furnishings and lifestyles. Hosted by Tiffany Woolley, an interior designer and a style enthusiast, along with her serial entrepreneur husband Scott, idesign Lab is your ultimate design podcast where we explore the rich and vibrant world of design and its constant evolution in style and trends. Idesign Lab provides industry insight, discussing the latest trends, styles and everything in between to better help you style your life, through advice from trendsetters, designers, influencers, innovators, fabricators and manufacturers, as well as personal stories that inspire, motivate and excite. And join us on this elevated, informative and lively journey into the world of all things design.

Tiffany Woolley: 0:50

So for today's iDesignLab Tibbit, we are going to discuss coverings in light of the coverings show that is happening right now in Orlando, which is a great Wait, wait, wait, time out, Time out.

Scott Woolley: 1:03

What do you mean coverings? I thought you meant time out. Wait, wait, time out, time out. What do you mean coverings? I thought, you meant time out like time out, no time out. So coverings? Tell me what coverings are.

Tiffany Woolley: 1:11

Coverings mean covering. It's covering your walls, it's covering Wallpaper, your flooring.

Tiffany Woolley: 1:19

It's covering your backyard, it's covering your driveway the multitude of materials that are readily available to us in this world. We kind of mention frequently in our tidbits, but every day that we just live in this world where people are constantly coming up with new innovations of materials. For example, we have a project right now that is like a really cool mid-century modern that we're bringing back to life and we really wanted to stay authentic, but it's also in Florida, and there is this amazing concrete material that's using marbles to create terrazzo. So the reality is is that terrazzo is just a minute material that has now a myriad of opportunity.

Scott Woolley: 2:12

Terrazzo is something that was really popular in the 1940s and 50s, you know, for flooring and commercial locations and so forth, and I think it still is used all the time.

Tiffany Woolley: 2:21

But my point is to discuss coverings and highlighting this beautiful show.

Scott Woolley: 2:26

We have a wood type of covering and then we have a fabric covering, correct.

Tiffany Woolley: 2:31

And.

Scott Woolley: 2:31

I think part of what you're really talking about is the fact that there are so many opportunities of choices.

Tiffany Woolley: 2:36

And I just don't want people to give up.

Scott Woolley: 2:37

People don't realize the amount of choices that there are.

Tiffany Woolley: 2:41

that there are and they really should be used. And your home should you know, whether it be a house in Florida or a house in the mountains or a house you know, you know on a golf course, what have you? You really want the inside out. I want people to really take advantage of all of this beauty and, you know, really become in. You know, in the know, and obviously designers are a great wealth of information to be in the know, but so are show rooms, but they're going to limit you where a designer is going to have their hands. You know, really, in all facets of what's available.

Scott Woolley: 3:18

I recently read somewhere that 90% of the homes in America people just paint the walls, so they put up a color and the vast majority it's white. So people don't even think and look at the fact that you know they just have white walls in their house, when there's literally millions of different options and opportunities to change those walls in so many different textures.

Tiffany Woolley: 3:43

I know, it's interesting because obviously we kind of made fun of a colored toilet, a colored sink for years, like the Frigidaire, avocado green, like color people. You know it was around a lot in the 70s, 50s those times and then everybody kind of shifted to white and clean and industrial and stainless steel. And I feel like right now what's available to everyone and you know the industry of design is kind of a happy medium of a cleaned up version of color, if that makes sense. So even Kohler has this great line now with all their you know, very basic products, but they're versions of white and you really can't dive into opportunity that is available to you.

Tiffany Woolley: 4:39

And I mean again bringing up the covering show and the little theme is the cover of the backgrounds of your home are the most important because that's the stuff that doesn't change regularly. Where the flooring, those are your big investments. When you sell the house or sell the property, those things stay. Those are not your heirlooms, your keepsakes, but they are the background that set the tone for you know, the duration of your time in that space.

Scott Woolley: 5:12

If you just think of a simple item like an oven in the house, if you just think of a simple item like an oven in the house ovens most people. It's black or it's chrome. Now it's red, yellow, green, blue. There's so many different colors that you can pick. You know, for that fixture that you have in your kitchen, that you're centered around in everything you're doing. You know your stove and your oven.

Tiffany Woolley: 5:35

I mean, there's such variety and it's funny because I've have a few recent new projects that have started where they visited a client of ours and it was a house that was on a local parade of homes and one client in particular, just like I, actually done this for a living. You know, I'm in the furniture industry, worked for Ralph Lauren, actually in Manhattan, very well versed in high style and has great style herself, but was always afraid to cover her homes with color, with wallpaper, with texture. You know her emphasis was always on the furniture versus the backgrounds, and the backgrounds are really so important in telling a design story and you know, as we like to promote and preach interior design work here in the iDesign Lab tidbit series, we definitely want people to reach out and be in the know and definitely not settle.

Scott Woolley: 6:39

Ask, ask if you're working with a designer or wherever you might be buying something. What are the other options?

Voice Over: 6:46

Yeah, all right, there's our little tidbit for today iDesign Labs Podcast is an SW Group production in association with the Five Star and TW Interiors. To learn more about iDesign Lab or TW Interiors, please visit twinteriorscom.