How To Use Leather-Textured Panels for Elegant Design

The soft touch and lightly ridged texture of leather makes it a much sought-after material for furniture — most commonly chairs and stools. You don’t have to be an interior designer to appreciate the smooth comfort and tough but yielding nature of a good leather couch or armchair.

However, did you know that the material is also popular for other pieces of furniture such as bespoke shelving units and for wall features? Some of the most stylish and exciting interior design trends use leather in less conventional ways. If you are thinking of using leather in your next project, leather-textured panels may be the way to go to make your project stand out.

Our Favorite Examples of Leather-Textured Panels in Interior Design

Leather-textured furniture and wall panels combine the luxury of leather with practicality and durability, allowing designers to create stunning and versatile installations. We gathered a few examples of how leather-textured interior design panels can enhance an indoor space — take a look!

1. Crisp and Clean Conference Room

Who says meeting areas have to look drab and utilitarian? This modern office includes two matching features that perfectly complement each other: an elongated table and a paneled wall backdrop. 

The wall panels here are all made from iron grey leather panels from Panasphere’s Azure collection. The grey color reflects the natural light and creates a peaceful, uncluttered space that is perfect for spending hours working on creative or technical projects with your team.

2. Charming Retail/Bar Space

This retail/bar area also uses Azure panels for its useful shelving units, table top, and cabinet surfaces — but in airy White Leather tone. Whether storing crockery, ingredients, books or ornaments, these bright white panels and backdrops can reduce visual clutter and increase the sense of space for visitors and customers.

Using leather alongside multiple other textures in a room can also have a unique, stylish effect. In this kitchen, the White Leather panels are matched with Sonoma Oak on the sides of the island.

3. Professional Office Space

In professional spaces, functionality is paramount. As mentioned earlier, however, this doesn't mean they can’t be stylish as well as practical! 

Like the retail/bar area, this office space also features a White Leather table top, as well as a partition made from Medium Grey Twist panels, also from the Azure collection. This partition provides a sense of a “space within a space”, where focus and privacy can exist while still keeping the benefits of an open-plan workspace.

4. Light and Dark Lounge

In some cases, you may want darker panels to cover a much larger space while still keeping the area welcoming. These Medium Grey Twist leather panels provide a slight contrast to the calm whites and copper elements that compliment this lounge without darkening the space too much. 

A slightly darker wall can really bring light colors into focus, whether it is the rug, couch, lampshades, ceiling or the marbled wall feature in this example. The softness of the leather surface also makes the wall luxurious to the touch.

5. Distinctive Gym Space

While some people prefer a light-toned room, some spaces just come to life with dark tones. For this gym space, focus and discipline were needed more than softness and tranquility. These feelings were conveyed effectively by the Iron Grey Leather used for its wall and furniture panels, which visually and materially matches the dark leather hand-rests and foot-rests of many popular pieces of gym equipment. 

The fact that these panels are durable and easy to wipe clean and maintain makes them ideal for the surfaces of the lockers. Compared to other mainstream gym designs, this space’s luxury is felt as soon as you walk in.

Soft Surface, Solid Build

Leather-textured panels typically feature only a thin layer of leather that is fused to the surface of a solid panel. These panels are usually made of wood or composite materials such as polyurethane or MDF. The durable and sturdy nature of these materials makes panels long-lasting and fit for a variety of design applications, from covering walls to acting as shelves or even tabletops.

The fusing process is typically carried out via a process known as HPL, or High-Pressure Laminate. The HPL method features resin-saturated decorative layers fused to a substrate layer using an immense amount of heat and pressure (over 1000 PSI). This method is irreversible and results in a highly durable panel.

However, due to the extreme heat and pressure required by the HPL process, panels produced this way are typically expensive. A popular alternative to HPL panels is TFL — or Thermally-Fused Laminate — panels. TFL panels are made of decorative sheets fused directly to particleboard, and they are usually more affordable and more environmentally friendly than HPL panels while keeping the same durability and versatility.

In addition, all of the examples provided above have quick and easy maintenance practices. To clean, lightly wipe it down with water and soap. After cleaning, all you have left to do is dry the leather. For an extra luxurious look, you can also condition the leather with your choice of enhancement product. 

Why Choose Panasphere’s Azure Decorative Panels?

All of Panasphere’s decorative panels are constructed using the TFL method, and their affordability, durability and variety of textural designs reflects this. The Azure collection features sustainable,high-quality dark and light leather textures to fit whatever design you want.

Don’t just take our word for it — seeing and feeling our leather-textured panels for yourself can make all the difference. That’s why we offer you the chance to request and try up to five free samples to help you decide if our panels are right for you — delivering anywhere in the U.S. within 7 to 10 days. If you have any questions, you can also contact our design experts.