14 Creative Ways to Design With Felt

Along with being an extremely resilient material that's flame-retardant and self-extinguishing, felt can easily be manipulated and shaped to create a range of customized designs without needing to finish the edges.

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From headboards and acoustic walls to decorative accents and organizational features, these 14 projects reveal felt's diverse, multifunctional capabilities.

Maya Romonoff-Designed Wallcovering For the Virgin Hotel

A detail of the Maya Romonoff-designed felt wallcovering, a custom modification of an existing pattern that sports a vertical red line motif.

Acoustic Sliding Doors

Felt-covered sliding doors made of acoustic substrate separate the children’s room and living area.

Photo: Bob O'Connor

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A Bedroom Partition to Break Up an Open Space

In the master bedroom, Flora sits in front of a clever divider Macleod created out of engineering felt.

Photo: Prue Ruscoe

A Custom Wall That Serves as Both Art and Soundproofing

Custom felt acoustic wall art in a Berkeley hillside home.

brKathryn A. Rogers

A Muti-Color Prototype Mural by FilzFelt For the Kids’ Room

Chris Grimley and Kelly Smith transformed a cramped apartment into a family-friendly home. The room shared by Mae, three, and her little brother Roen, one, features a custom prototype mural by FilzFelt, their mother’s textile design company. The carpet is by Flor, and the child-size chair and Amoeba table are both by Jens Risom for Knoll.

Photo: Bob O'Connor

Pendant Lights That Absorb Noise

Muuto Under the Bell pendant lights are made from recycled plastic felt, which helps absorb noise and improve acoustics—a key feature in the open office.

Nicole Franzen

A Shelving System For Plants or Storage

The Felt Droplet system by Garman Furniture consists of strips of natural wool felt that are capable of supporting a two-inch-deep shelf or planter.

Garman Furniture

Cutwork Wall Hangings Made With Industrial Wool Felt

This past spring, Hatch invited California College of the Arts graphic design professor Jennifer Morla to create her signature wool felt textiles.

Photo: Christie Hemm

Chair Covers to Match a Home’s Brick Facade

The kitchen is the entrance point for the Collettes’ home and its functional core. The warm colors of the house’s wood-and-brick exterior are continued in the felt covers of the Face chairs in umber, red, and rust—a vintage 1983 design for Montis by Gerard van der Berg. The cupboards are gray ("but a warm stone gray, not a cold corporate gray,"Dedy emphasizes). Dark stone was planned for the countertop but looked far too heavy. The couple chose Duropal, a stainless steel lookalike that’s easier to maintain.

Photo: Martien Mulder

A Soft Felted Headboard and Matching Lamp Shade

The couple’s bedroom is a serene space with tinted plaster walls and a white felt headboard and lampshade by Leen.

Photo: Hotze Eisma

Natural Felt Tiles Dotted on a Wall

Tiles of natural felt dot the walls in the Universitair Medisch Centrum, Utrecht. Jongstra was asked to create a warmer feeling for this wing of the medical center, where people come for radiation and chemotherapy treatment.

Photo: Adam Broomberg

Wall-Mounted Storage Pocket

Unobtrusive and easily mounted, the Leaning Wall Pocket, a simple but sturdy storage pouch, is made in Belgium from plywood and comes in 12 different colors of felt.

Felt-Wrapped Phone Rooms at a Mobile Game Studio

Pink Muuto Visu Chairs invite employees into the phone rooms while Dome Sconces by Allied Maker provide gentle light. The felt-wrapped rooms with bleached plywood slats are one of Murphy's favorite features. "It's a nice nod to the Japanese inspiration that originally helped get the game off the ground," says Murphy.

Nicole Franzen

A Wall Layered With Rectangular Pieces of Felt

"We wanted something less Euro. We used felt on one wall, herringbone floors, and walnut shelving to give it some color," Graham Hill says.

Photo by Christopher Testani

Felt Walls to Soften an Oriented Strand Board Structure

The master bedroom’s felt walls keep things cozy, and the hanging rubber Soft lamps by Droog prevent bumped heads.

Photo: Jesse Chehak

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