Design Trends and Applications of White Oak Plywood in Modern Commercial Spaces
Oak is one of the most popular types of hardwood used in interior design due to both its durability and visual appeal. We’ve been using it for centuries to give our interior spaces warm and cozy appeal that never goes out of style. In this respect, white oak is second to none.
Both red and white oak wood planks and veneers are readily available in most markets, and red oak is slightly more popular due to its lower price point. But, you can still achieve some of today’s top design trends with white oak plywood without breaking the bank.
If you’re familiar with plywood but have reservations about using it to decorate your living and working spaces, it’s time you learn how versatile this material can be. Let’s dive in.
What is white oak plywood?
White oak plywood is created by affixing an A-grade white oak veneer to sheets of plywood. This delivers the look of beautiful white oak in large sheets that are ideal for covering large expanses. The sheets themselves are constructed largely in the way you would expect. But, the veneer facing gives you a high end look without the high end price. It’s a great choice for any building or remodeling project.
Why choose wood?
Wood is a classic element in design. That said, many people today opt for materials like concrete or metal, because they associate them with contemporary design philosophies. If you’re exclusively looking at other materials, there are some great reasons to consider adding wood into the mix.
Wood is sustainable
If you’re looking to incorporate eco-friendly and sustainable features into your interior design, wood is wonderful. It grows freely, can be repurposed and reclaimed for decades to come, and isn’t harmful to the environment when disposed of. For those looking to make greener design choices, wood is a go-to material.
Wood is durable
When compared to many other building materials, wood is incredibly durable. This is an especially important fact if you like to actually live and work in the space. People and objects will inevitably bump into surfaces, and choosing a durable material like wood will ensure you aren’t constantly making expensive repairs.
Wood is a versatile design element
From rich and cozy coves to eye-catching minimalist shared work spaces, wood works wonderfully. Scour your city and you’ll find awesome examples of oak wood in modern commercial design and classical architecture alike. No matter what you want, white oak delivers.
Where to use white oak plywood
There are a number of great applications for white oak plywood, and the best use always depends on your use case. It provides warmth and sophistication in commercial spaces, and delivers a rich, homey feel to residential spaces. In either scenario, you have a wide range of great places to use it.
Oak wood floors are always a popular option, but why stop there? Using white oak plywood to fill out your walls and ceilings can create a serene ambiance that your family and friends are sure to appreciate.
Walls
For some, the thought of wooden walls conjures up visions of their grandparents’ basements and rustic cabins. White oak plywood, however, is not the flimsy faux wood facade of the sixties and seventies or the dusty wood walls found in old cabins. It’s built with high quality, real wood, and delivers a look more in line with what you’d see in a nice restaurant or live music venue.
Using white oak plywood in your wall designs provides subtle texture and warm wood tones that have a unique ability to set off your design like few other materials. It can be tinted and stained to work with a wide array of different color palettes and materials, and it holds up against abuse much better than drywall ever could.
If you aren’t in the market for a room that’s completely surrounded by wood, you can use it very effectively to create a stunning accent wall. Fitting one wall with white oak plywood that’s finished to provide a punch of contrast against the other walls gives the space a more complex look that helps complete the space.
Ceilings
Ceilings are another great place to incorporate white oak plywood into your design. Its integration in ceilings can be used to create a plain flat ceiling with tons more character than the old popcorn ceilings many of us grew up with, but there are even more creative uses out there. One of the best ways you can use it is in a coffered ceiling.
For those looking to maximize on a classic look that provides some texture and an illusion of height, coffered ceilings are a wonderful option. They are created by suspending a grid of intersecting beams that are fitted with panels to fill in the recessed spaces. Cutting panels from white oak plywood is an accessible and economical way to give your coffered ceilings the high end look you’re after.
Using a natural material like white oak provides a range of different aesthetic appeals to match any design trend. The type of beams you choose can create different kinds of contrast to your oak wood ceilings. Using white or black beams separates the wood panels with contrasting lines that create visual depth and make the room look larger.
There are a number of ceiling design ideas that work very well with white oak. If you’re looking for inspiration, check out some articles on classic and contemporary ceiling design styles that are sure to impress.
Wood provides acoustic benefits
Aside from the unsurpassed aesthetics and characteristics of white oak plywood, its acoustic benefits make it a material that goes above and beyond. That’s because few building materials provide the natural acoustic benefits of wood. It’s all due to the way sound waves interact with it.
Wood is both an absorptive and reflective surface, meaning some sound waves are absorbed and others are reflected. It’s just absorptive enough that they won’t contribute to acoustical issues and just reflective enough to prevent the room from sounding flat. This is exactly what you want when designing for great acoustics.
If you have too much absorption, very few sound waves are able to return into the space. This is what causes rooms to sound flat. That flat sound can create uneasy feelings that prohibit the open exchange of conversation. It’s too quiet.
Too much reflection, on the other hand, and we can run into other acoustical issues. Allowing sound reflections to run wild creates excess noise that negatively impacts the sound of the space. Namely, we’re talking about echo and reverberation.
Echo
Echo is a phenomenon wherein sound waves traverse a space, impact a reflective surface and return to the source. We’re all familiar with it, and it can provide an exciting afternoon on a mountain trail or something fun to do with our friends in the school gymnasium. When we experience it indoors, however, it can lead to miscommunication and people shouting to be heard. We need to control it if we want great sound in any room.
Reverberation
When too much echo builds up in a room, we experience reverberation, or reverb. Those reflected sound waves have an additive effect, and they can actually make the room louder all on their own. Again, we need to adequately address sound waves to keep it from killing the vibe.
The solution to both echo and reverb is to scatter sound in some spots, and absorb it in others. Wood is the perfect solution. Applications in furniture and fixtures have long been known to provide an ideal acoustical atmosphere, as well as a timeless look that will stay in style for a long while. A solid mix of wood in the room can keep any space looking and sounding great.
Sourcing white oak
If you like the sound of using white oak in your design, you’ll need to find a source that provides a superior product at a fair price. If you’re wondering where to buy white oak plywood, the source is even more important. Not all products are created equally, so you must find a distributor that uses high quality veneers and pays attention to details.
We carry only the highest quality woods, and we supplement our selection with all the knowledge you’ll ever need to install a quality product that lasts. Whether you need help in the design phase or simply need some maintenance tips for commercial use, we’ve got you covered.