Choosing block print wallpaper
Where it works
Block prints suit rooms with textiles in them: a bedroom with a quilt, a living room with kilims, a kitchen with linen at the windows. Indigo Cardinal, a bird on flax linen, and Indigo Medallion are bedroom designs. Denim Dash, indigo strokes grouped into squares and doorway shapes, is modern enough for a home office. Painted Dots, cobalt and pale denim circles in offset rows, suits a nursery or a bathroom. Topiary Urns, cream urns and clipped trees stacked in columns on black, is the formal one, hallway or dining room.
Picking between the designs
Nearly everything here is indigo on cream, so choose by the mark. Small repeated stamps: Painted Dots, Stamped Blossom, Indigo Medallion alternating florals with four-point stars. Massed marks that build shapes: Denim Dash, Navy Coral with its branching navy silhouettes packed close. Tiles: Patchwork Tile, diamonds on cream plaster each hand-blocked with a different arabesque, and Navy Tiles, cream medallions with notched edges on navy. Figures: Indigo Cardinal, Topiary Urns. The rougher the edge, the more the print reads as cloth; Indigo Medallion and Painted Dots are the roughest, Navy Tiles the cleanest. Tangerine Blossom and Orange Geometric are the two that leave indigo behind.
Related
The indigo designs continue in navy wallpaper and blue wallpaper; the tiles in geometric wallpaper. For the resist-dyed cousin of block printing, read What is an ikat pattern.