Bird Wallpaper

Choosing bird wallpaper

Where it works

A bird gives the eye somewhere to land, so put them in rooms where people end up standing close. A nursery, a bathroom, a hallway. The wall your desk faces. Woodland Songbird, drawn in faded ink on parchment, pays you back for leaning in, and so does Speckled Sparrow, which hides three birds among ivory blooms. Sky Swallows does the reverse. Its clouds are built with real depth and the room seems to open out, and we'd use it in a bedroom or on a landing. The dark ones wait for evening. Gold Finches on near-black teal and Pomegranate Perch on solid black look best with the lamps on, in a study or over a dining table.

Picking between the designs

First, how much do you want to see the bird? In Speckled Sparrow the birds wear the same colours as the flowers and only surface on a second look. Apple Songbird and Peony Thicket play the same trick. With Barn Owls it's the other way round, the bird is the subject and everything else is setting. Same with Sky Swallows and Black Parrot. Then the ground. Woodland Songbird and Raspberry Thicket are on cream. Barn Owls sits on slate blue and Peony Songbird on grey, Pomegranate Branch goes deep teal, and Pomegranate Perch goes right to black. For a period room, Morris's Strawberry Thief is the one. Thrushes carrying off strawberries, and nobody will mistake it for a nursery paper.

Related

Birds among pagodas and peonies sit in chinoiserie wallpaper as well. Owls and finches also live in woodland wallpaper, and the rest of the menagerie is in animal wallpaper. Morris's thrushes started it, and Who is William Morris is about the designer behind them.