4 Tips for Choosing Wallpaper Without Freaking Out

Choosing wallpaper is a scary prospect. I, personally, love wallpaper and am SO happy it is back in fashion. But how do you choose a wallpaper that you’ll still love in 5 years? I’ve been going through the process of choosing wallpaper over the last month. It can be a minefield of indecision and samples, especially when there are so many options. Below is the process I used to pick papers for the cottage. Give it a go. It doesn’t have to be daunting.

Barriers to Choosing Wallpaper

The very idea of wallpaper can be daunting. Once it’s up on your walls, it’s there for the duration.

Well, that’s how it used to be, anyway.

When we moved to Green Gate Farm, I spent a week removing hideous 80’s wallpaper. Nobody wants fish friezes and skeletons in their bedrooms. Well, clearly someone did back then, but nobody wants it today. Removing that wallpaper was a nightmare but today’s wallpapers are far less permanent and can be removed easily. Peel and stick varieties come straight off. The newer prepasted papers also remove quickly. This makes the choice to hang wallpaper far less daunting.

Other people find choosing wallpaper hard because of the cost. I’m not going to lie, Wallpaper can be VERY pricey. Especially if you want to paper an entire room. You can get around this by putting the wallpaper on one wall as a feature. Wallpaper behind a bed can look lovely. Or you could hang it in decorative panels, or under or above a dado rail to save money. There are less expensive options if you want to wallpaper the entire room. This makes wallpaper less of a barrier.

What if you get it wrong? Now this is the hard part, If you choose the wrong paper you could be in terrible trouble. But,… you can paper a small area or one wall, see how you like it. If it’s just not for you, then send the rest back and chalk the roll you used as a decorating mistake. It’s not like you laid a wall of tile and then hated it!

So How Do I Choose Wallpaper?

Tip #1: I like to have a specific idea or mood in mind when I begin a wallpaper selection. (Or any decorating selection, for that matter.) You really should have a whole house colour scheme in mind too. This will help you determine the colours and style of the wallpaper you choose. Below are some of my initial choices for wallpaper. You can clearly see the green/beige/cream scheme I was opting for. After the samples arrived I ended up choosing a darker more olive green.

I wanted the scheme at Blackbird Cottage to include wallpaper. The cottage was constructed in this manner. The walls were not painted. Instead, there were layers of history created with paper. So my first port of call was my own walls. What colours and styles were popular in 1870? What was on our walls? More importantly, What feeling am I trying to evoke with my wallpaper choices?

The answer to the last question seemed obvious to me. I want to create a modern Georgian-style cottage with layers of pattern and colour. And who better to look to for inspiration than William Morris? If you don’t have the luxury of historical wallpapers, consider the age of your home and the type of mood you want to create. My cottage choices would not have suited the farmhouse.

Once I know my direction I hit the wallpaper sites. This is the part that can be overwhelming because there are so many papers to choose from. To make choosing wallpaper easier, I filter by colour and style. So, you might say green and floral. Then once you have a page open you can find papers you like, look at related papers and make some choices. Filtering by the designer is also good if you know a style you like. My three favourites for the cottage are William Morris, Anna French and Borestapeter.

Tip #2″ The next step is to have samples sent. And believe me, this is crucial. I ordered from many sites. The colour of the samples I received never matched what was on the screen of my laptop. Most of them looked VERY different! If you are spending a lot of cash on your wallpaper you want it to be the right colour.

Once my samples have arrived I tape them to the wall with my colour choices. I play around with them in different rooms and I try to imagine how a feature wall or whole room will look in this pattern. Over the course of days, I narrow down my choices by removing the samples I don’t like.

Often the sample I thought was perfect turns our the be the one I don’t like, so don’t be afraid to discard it. Also, be very intentional in making sure your samples coordinate with your paint colour choices. You will need to swap one of these our if they don’t create a cohesive look. (and its easier to swap a paint colour than a wallpaper.)

Tip #3: The pattern does not have to be on the wall. If the idea of the wallpaper suddenly freaks you out or you have too many choices but they coordinate you can use the patterns in soft furnishings. Most designers have their patterns printed in fabric. These could be used as accents around your room

Tip #4: Order enough for the entire room but begin with one wall. If you haven’t opened the wallpaper it’s easily returnable. However, if you start and then decide you want more getting the correct batch number might not be so easy. Slight colour variations in wallpaper can happen and you don’t want it to happen in the middle of your room!

Happy decorating!