If your travels of late have mostly been longing scrolls through Instagram and your passport’s become a casualty of your junk drawer, fear not, the world can still be at your feet. In fact, you can start stamping that passport again in your home one room — and one upholstery fabric — at a time.
Inspired by Michelle Nussbaumer’s Wanderlust: Interiors That Bring the World Home, today we’re seeking the treasures of global design inspiration. The kind of inspiration offering something luxurious, new, and sure to have your home feeling like it says, “This is my soul in home form.”
Today we offer you 5 ideas to stamp your home’s design passport with soul, stories, and some decidedly serious upholstery swagger. The goal is soulful adventure, not polished perfection. Whether your heart longs for the feel of a Marrakech market or Scandinavian simplicity with a splash of the spicy side of Jaipur — or a million more possibilities. All aboard.
- Your Sofa Wants To Tell An Amazing Story — Yours
You may not know it, but your sofa is an astonishingly good narrator of your story — if you free it to be. Like a tufted chesterfield sofa dressed in peacock blue velvet, telling the story of that little jazz club you stumbled into on a rainy night in Paris years ago. Or a slipper chair in your bedroom donning a rain aqua block print style linen, bringing you back to mornings on the Amalfi Coast.
Your furniture is part time machine and part a postcard you send yourself from the adventures lived or just dreamed of. And all you need is a little intentionality in the upholstery fabrics you choose.
Start with the simple question, does this fabric make me feel something? No greater expertise is required, no need to have actually bartered in a Turkish bazaar over ikats and suzanis. Just listen to yourself and the stories you’d like to live in.
Pro tip: Go boldly. No need to fear bold prints or luxurious textures. Fabrics are among the easiest design elements to change out as you change. So, feel free to go with embroidered fabric pillows, authentic French linen, or sumptuous silk. Tell your story.
- How To Turn Your Travel Dreams Into Your Home’s Design Reality
I recently tried one of those virtual reality headsets and, as part of the demo, they drop you into exotic locales and you 100% feel like you’re there. What we’re talking about today is that — for your home.
And just like the VR headset, a good coffee table book, an internet deep dive, or thumbing through an old-school magazine can give you all the inspiration you need. No plane tickets, passports, or let lag required. Ask yourself what textures, patterns, colors, or moods really speak to you, really bring something alive in you? Then bring that home.
Fall in love with a Japanese wabi-sabi style home? Bring home the serene ivory white boucle headboard that was calling you. Found yourself seduced by the sunsets in the deserts of Morocco? Try an ochre gold velvet banquette offering a serene spot and whispering those Moroccan vibes.
Wherever you like to perch in your home is where upholstery can grant you entry into the vibes of your dreams. Even just an accent chair and throw pillows can spice things up just enough and elevate the feelings you long for — plus, save big on plane tickets.
- Transform Your Home’s Vibe With The Design Magic Of Mixing Fabrics
There’s designing a room, and then there’s curating an experience. That’s what a soulful globetrotting design approach feels like. So what does that mean? In short, matching is fine, but mixing is magic.
So a mid-century modern sectional in meadow green tweed is right at home with something like a traditional Lakota wedding blanket draped over it. And a dining room with chairs in a cornflower blue tile-inspired abstract pattern like the ones you saw in Portugal are perfectly at home with elegant rose tone ticking-inspired striped drapes.
Mixing magic starts with a hero fabric, perhaps a bold floral print or animal print and build from there. Then layer in textures, colors, and patterns through the furniture, pillows, throws, heck, even lampshades. You’re creating a lived-in, loved, and uniquely you vibe. Like your style is something you’ve been collecting over the course of your adventures.
Budget hack: If custom upholstery feels like too steep a climb, lean into the joy of slipcovers and pillow shams. And check out our DIY resources to help get you there. Before you know it, you’ll be transforming a favorite thrift store find into a vintage gem.
- The Key To Globetrotting Design Style Is Perfectly Imperfect
The mixing works because it’s not a flaw, it’s a fingerprint. And celebrating places and cultures that inspire you isn’t about perfection, it’s about soul.
Legendary traveler writers like Anthony Bourdain and others have long found inspiration less in the palaces and more in the back alleys and side streets, the hidden gems. That’s where the best stories live. So, what does that mean in practical terms for your home?
It means you’re done obsessing over matching your drapes, and your rug, and your dog, and… Instead, you get to play with upholstery styles, so a living room or den might have an armchair in earthy char gray ikat jacquard and another in walnut brown distressed faux leather. You might have a sofa in large-scale red and white stripes, and throw pillows in a red toile cotton and a burgundy abstract tribal motif.
If it feels like we’re repeating ourselves, perfect! Or rather perfectly imperfect! Some things are worth repeating. Like — for instance — your absolute favorite travel stories brought to life in your home’s design. Creating a feeling of the same sense of curiosity, adventure, and discovery in which they were made.
- How Small Design Changes Can Mean Coming Home To Big Inspiration
You read a story one chapter at a time. You can do the same when adding the wanderlust spirit in your home. Pick a room or even a single piece.
Reimagine your headboard in a neutral tone sari-inspired pattern Crypton fabric and dream a little dream, a little differently. Or reupholster an ottoman that’s past its prime in a bold geometric print velvet. Even just sectional pillow shams DIY’d in dhurrie-inspired abstract global pattern.
Then pause. See how it feels, what it inspires in you. Does it ease something or open something up in you? Does it spark conversation? Do you find yourself grabbing your favorite beverage, cozying up, and settling in to swap stories? Then it’s working.
Like the destinations you choose for your adventures, here at the largest upholstery fabric store online, we know your upholstery choices will change over time as your stories evolve and grow.
And we’re here to help you on your journey as you mix freely, upholster boldly, and design from and with heart. So you get to live in a home that’s as interesting, layered, and worldly as you are. Consider your passport approved and stamped.
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https://www.kovifabrics.com/search/product-detail/62239
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walnut
large-scale
toile
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sari-inspired
geometric
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