12 New Melamine Board Decors in the Téchne Samples Gallery
The Téchne materials gallery just grew by 12 new melamine decors: Kendal and Corbridge oaks, three greys, Soft Black and Tyrolean Blue. A hands-on guide.
For many customers, choosing the decor is the hardest part of ordering custom furniture: colours look different from one screen to another, and no display can convey how a surface feels. That is exactly why the Téchne materials gallery — the Materials & Samples page — exists: real photographs of physical samples, organised by category. And this summer the gallery grew substantially: 12 new melamine board decors, photographed sample by sample, carrying the exact names you will find in the configurator.
What the materials gallery covers today
The gallery spans six material categories: melamine board, ultra-matt laminated MDF, high-gloss laminated MDF, matt painted MDF, veneered board and the RAL/NCS colour palettes for special orders — more than 40 photographed samples in total. The melamine board category, the workhorse of custom furniture (it is the standard material for both carcasses and fronts), is the one that received the 12 new decors. All melamine panels are edged with 1 mm ABS, so the edge you see on the sample is exactly the edge your furniture will have.
The 12 new decors at a glance
Wood decors
- Cognac Kendal Oak (H3398 ST12) — a warm, cognac-toned oak for statement pieces;
- Grey Corbridge Oak (H3156 ST12) and Natural Corbridge Oak (H3395 ST12) — the same oak grain in two temperatures: smoky grey and natural;
- Rovato Oak Natural (H3322 ST17) — natural oak with a pronounced texture;
- Light Lakeland Acacia (H1277 ST9) — a light, luminous acacia, well suited to small rooms.
Solid colours
- Arctic Grey (U788 ST9), Silk Grey (U707 ST9) and Stone Grey (U727 ST9) — three steps of grey, from cool-light to medium, which you can also combine within the same room;
- Soft Beige (U220 ST9) — the calm beige, a warm alternative to grey;
- Soft Black (U899 ST9) — a soft, sheen-free black for high-contrast fronts;
- Tyrolean Blue (U504 ST9) — a desaturated blue that works beautifully on wardrobe fronts in bedrooms;
- Satin (K7045 SU) — a discreet satin neutral, equally at home inside and outside a cabinet.
The codes in brackets are the board manufacturers' decor codes (the H and U series — Egger, the K series — Kronospan), the same codes you see in the configurator's colour picker. If you already own furniture in a standard decor and want to continue it, the code is the safest common language.
How to choose between so many decors
A few guidelines that simplify the decision:
- Start from the light. In north-facing rooms or rooms with small windows, light decors (Light Lakeland Acacia, Soft Beige, Arctic Grey) keep the space airy. Dark tones such as Soft Black or Cognac Kendal Oak want generous daylight — or small doses: one row of fronts, not an entire wall.
- Pair wood with solids. The most balanced compositions use a single wood decor plus one or two solid colours. For instance: a Natural Corbridge Oak carcass with Silk Grey fronts, or the other way around.
- Think in interior–exterior pairs. The configurator lets you pick the carcass colour and the front colour separately, so you can keep the interior in an economical, bright decor and reserve the statement decor for the outside.
- Do not ignore texture. The suffix after the code (ST9, ST12, ST17, SU) describes the surface texture: the same tone with a different texture looks and feels different. One more reason to order physical samples.
If you want a broader starting point on colour coordination, we have a dedicated guide: how to choose furniture colours.
Why the physical sample remains the mandatory step
The materials gallery is designed as a first filter: it narrows your list down to two or three favourites without any waiting. But the final decision deserves to be made with the sample in your hand, under the light of your own room — screens render colours differently, and texture simply cannot travel through a display. The full procedure is described in our article on how to order Téchne material samples; in short, you write to us through the contact page with the decors you are interested in, and we send you physical pieces of the actual production materials.
From sample to your furniture
Once the decor is settled, the rest is easy: open the wardrobe configurator or any other cabinet type, pick the colours for the carcass and the fronts, and see the final price and delivery estimate instantly. And if you are working on a whole room, the Room Planner lets you place every piece in your own space and check how the decors work together before you order. The difference between a decor that is merely pretty and the decor that is right shows up exactly there — in your room, not on our screen.