Purple Wallpaper

Purple wallpaper is the color people circle for months before committing, and the hesitation is nearly always about light rather than taste. A lilac that looks powdery on a sample board turns cool and almost gray on a north-facing wall, while aubergine deepens toward plum once the lamps come on. Tape a sample up and check it at three different hours.

Where purple wallpaper works in an American home

Small, enclosed rooms are where these colors earn their keep. A powder room papered wall to wall in deep violet reads as deliberate rather than dark: nobody stands in it long enough for the color to press in. In a den or home office, mid-tone violets sit well behind a screen, saturated enough to feel like a room and quiet enough to work in.

The primary bedroom is the one place worth slowing down. Lavender and mauve read as restful in daylight, but under warm LED bulbs they drift toward pink. For softness without the drift, look for a woven or brushed ground instead of a flat print. Texture breaks the color up and keeps it honest, which is why textured wallpaper and silk wallpaper carry these shades better than smooth paper.

Trim, ceilings and floors to pair with purple

A common mistake is treating the color as an accent and leaving the rest builder white. White trim against aubergine draws a hard outline that flattens the wall. Take the woodwork to a shade close to the paper, a half-tone deeper ideally, and the color holds the whole room. Underfoot, white oak and walnut settle these violets down, while cool gray-washed floors push them colder. Next door, black wallpaper and green wallpaper stand up beside violet without fighting it.

Hanging dark purple wallpaper on drywall

European rolls run narrower than the American standard: many measure about 20.9 in (53 cm) wide and 33 ft (10.05 m) long, though this varies by brand, so check the product page first. Aubergine is unforgiving on a wall that has not been prepped, because every seam and skim-coat ridge in drywall shows more under a dark solid than under a busy pattern. Lining paper, or an extra pass with the sander, pays off here.

The brands behind these purple shades

The violets here come from houses with very different instincts. Elitis builds tactile grounds where the pigment sits down in the fiber. Casamance leans mineral, with dusty mauves and slate-edged violets. House of Hackney goes the opposite way, with botanicals where violet carries the entire print. Cole & Son, Thibaut, Anna French and Dedar add their own range, from damask wallpaper to quiet plain grounds. Everything ships from the Netherlands with duties and taxes included in the price shown, so nothing is added at the door.