"It was an average sized room with orange carpet and white walls, entirely empty except for a small circular table with a telephone on top in the middle."
When you read something like that do you not form a coherent mental image of this room?
So like, hearing that the character got out of a car and is at the beach now is enough for me, reading about the white sands, wooden chairs, and crystal clear water is just stuff I ignore, my brain just says 'ok - store fact that character is now at beach. engage mental / factual associations about what beaches are like / what your emotions are around beaches'. But there's not a step where I think 'let's picture that beach'. I'd rather just think about it.
Especially if the text adds details later, I won't be able to add those in most of the time.
For example, for the fragment you quoted, there is no carpet in my room no matter how hard I try to add it. And the walls are made of wood.