Multicolor wallpaper

Reading the palette in multicolor wallpaper

Multicolor wallpaper carries three, five, sometimes a dozen colors in one design, and hanging it well starts with deciding which color leads. Usually that is the ground the pattern sits on. Let it steer the rug, the trim and the upholstery, and borrow the rest sparingly: a pillow, a lampshade. One color in charge is the difference between a composed wall and a noisy one.

Testing a multicolored sample in your own light

Tape the sample up and look at it twice: mid-morning, and again after the lamps are on. Warm grounds such as sand, clay or faded gold hold their character under artificial light and pull a wall toward you; cooler grounds recede and give a long room air.

Rooms that carry a multicolored pattern well

A powder room is the easiest place to begin: little furniture to argue with, and four walls of pattern read as generous rather than heavy. An entryway or stair hall behaves the same way, since you pass through rather than settle in. In a den or breakfast nook, keep the pattern to the wall you face from the doorway; in a primary bedroom, to the wall behind the headboard.

Colors that sit beside a multicolored design

With the lead color settled, the adjoining walls follow. A foliage-based design sits easily beside green wallpaper, while an indigo-led pattern asks for blue wallpaper around the corner. When the eye needs a rest, a wall in beige wallpaper gives the pattern room. Children's rooms run by other arithmetic; our kids' room wallpaper gathers the designs that take more color.

Backing, seams and ordering multicolor wallpaper

Most of these designs are printed on non-woven backing, which goes onto primed drywall with paste on the wall, not the paper. The sheet does not stretch, which on a multicolored print is what keeps the seam from showing. A standard European roll runs 33 ft (10.05 m) long and 20.9 in (53 cm) wide, so measure the wall in strips and order all rolls at once, since color is mixed per batch. Browse non-woven wallpaper if the backing decides it.

European brands behind our multicolor patterns

The brand shows in how its colors behave. Casamance works in layered, painterly color that shifts across a wall. Elitis leans on surface, so its colors arrive with a texture you read from across the room. House of Hackney goes the other way, with dense botanical prints and hard contrast. Mulberry and Morris & Co keep color inside the archive pattern. Order a sample of whatever you shortlist; the wall is the only honest test. For customers in the United States, duties and taxes are included in the price shown, and everything ships from the Netherlands.