What Is Material Drenching? The Design Trend Will Fill Your Home With Elegant Drama

Last year, all-over color swept fashionable interiors, social media, and designer imaginations, enveloping us in cozy, earth-hued spaces and bold, jewel-toned rooms.

This year, in congruence with a renewed interest in adding texture to our homes, designers are taking the trend to the luxurious next level: material drenching. This method clads an entire room in a single stone, tile, wood, mirror, or fabric, and achieves a similarly elevated look—with an entirely different feel.

Here, we asked interior designers to reveal why this statement-making design trend has caught on, what rooms are best suited for it, and how to get it just right.

What Is Material Drenching?

Like its predecessor, color drenching, material drenching gives a room an intentional, encompassing feel. But beyond what can be achieved with just paint, it also adds sensory appeal.

“The effect is dramatic, as it truly provides a sense of being hugged by the material, or stepping into another world,” says interior designer Róisín Lafferty. A tactile covering on the walls, ceiling, and floor can encourage a deeper interaction with a room, emotionally and physically. “You almost want to touch the space—not just look at it,” she adds.

While the trend seems wholly contemporary, it can trace its roots back to the 1920s, when interior design moved away from the layered glamor of Art Deco and into a more streamlined look.

“The early modernists were great at this,” says Abigail Turin, co-founder of architecture and design studio Kallos Turin. “Rejecting ornament in favor of simplicity of form naturally led to fewer materials used with more intensity. Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona pavilion [1929] is a great early example of the effects, using stone slab.”

When drenching, material choice helps determine the intensity. Stone, for example, can add subtle texture but a big visual punch through expressive veining; a small-format tile can bring greater tangible movement while honing in on a single hue.

Why It's Popular

Today, our homes are spaces we want to help us feel, and be, our best. Material drenching can encourage that wellbeing. “For me, it's a way of altering how a space feels, and how you react within a space,” says Lafferty. If colors are known to affect mood, materials can do the same—with added dimensionality.

It also taps into the prevailing demand for bespoke interior designs tailored to a specific homeowner and space. “When a client gravitates to a color or material and we double down on its use, that tends to make the project feel more personal to them,” says Stephania Kallos, co-founder of Kallos Turin.

Lafferty sees its popularity as evidence of the increased crossover of commercial, hospitality, and residential design—and a willingness to experiment within them. “Material drenching has been used in luxury retail for many years and has been creeping into hospitality too,” she says. Seeing its rise in domestic spaces, “is a sign that people are open to more creativity in their homes.”

How to Decorate With It

If approaching material drenching feels overwhelming, then interior designers advise taking cues from the early modernists themselves: Focus on sunlight, air, and utility when pairing a material with a room.

“We think about how light enters the space and how it will reflect off or be absorbed by a material,” says Kallos. “And we think about color, knowing that the more of a material or color you use, the more intense and saturated it can be.”

Maintenance should also be considered: Fabric isn’t an optimal choice in a bathroom with a steam shower, while stone could feel too cold to wrap some bedrooms.

Lafferty takes all five senses into account. “More intimate spaces work by layering softer and warmer materiality, like timber and polished plaster; they also have great acoustic properties, which help with sound absorption and avoid echoes,” she says. “More dramatic materials such as stone can work in impactful spaces that are less sensitive.”

Start small or subtle if you're hesitant to jump into the all-over trend. A material-drenched powder room can create a punchy jewel box; Venetian plaster can give a room character, while maintaining a minimalist feel.