Wood paneling adds a certain ambience to a room. Dark panels warm a rec room and bestow a serious air to studies, while lighter woods, such as pickled or whitewashed wainscoting, make a kitchen or bath seem bright, clean and simple.

A French company, Marotte, plans to shake up those associations a bit with a line of veneer panels that are anything but traditional.

The carved, woven and mosaic wood panels literally add a new dimension to standard panels. "Even with rigorous production and careful choice of woods, smooth panels give only a two-dimensional reality based on height and width, leaving the depth right out of it," Marotte spokesman David Tirard says. "Marotte works with wood to give it form, relief and volume."

New this year, Marotte’s mosaic panels mix shapes, colors, textures and species to create three-dimensional effects. The woven panels consist of crossed veneer strips in close or open weaves, and carved panels come in various motifs, including gouged, guilloched (interlacing curved lines), grooved, lined and scratched. For more information, visit www.marotte.fr.