Tips for interior design with Wallpaper

There is an art in choosing the right wallpaper for your home, regardless of whether you’re decorating entire room or feature wall. Wallpaper is often one of the first items to be included in a home, so decorators should follow these interior design tips when selecting the right one. Small patterns can get lost in a room with high ceilings, so think about the scale in proportion to the room.

Striped wallpaper always looks stunning in an entrance or hallway as it’s a true statement especially in character homes. It’s classic and doesn’t tend to date, especially if you go with wider stripes. When renovating, run the stripes vertically if you want a room to appear smaller and horizontally if you want to give the area a sense of space.

Let your creativity run wild when wallpapering kid’s rooms: themed wallpaper always works, but make sure to choose a design your children love. My friends recently wallpapered their children’s rumpus room and the kids loved it so much they didn’t see them for days.

In bedrooms, keep to designs that are not too loud and don’t dominate the room. My favourite design at the moment is a beautiful feather wallpaper pattern from a French textile company, Elitis. Popular wallpapers for bedrooms, living areas and theatre rooms include stencilled tree prints, wood grain designs, rustic floor boards, Moroccan, geometric, hand-woven, and metallic papers that reflect the light.

Natural textural vinyl wallpapers are also becoming more prominent as they have that earthy look about them. Some look like a natural linen and are perfect for use in high traffic areas. Also, you don’t have to live in an older property for wallpapers to be effective. They work beautifully in modern properties too. Clients looking at building often ask me about wallpaper in the early stages of planning and I always recommend using a wallpaper specialist for installing.

I remember my mum being first in the interior design community to have hessian wallpaper on the walls in the 70’s. Today, the textural and natural wallpapers are back with a vengeance, with a different take on the older designs.

I always recommend to use a professional quality paper hanger who not only understands which glues should be applied but the correct pattern matching; there are many quality tradesmen / women found in Geelong. It’s expensive to make this mistake yourself, then have to rebuy more wallpaper and reapply it. Remember to enjoy the process.

As seen in Geelong GT Magazine