Checkerboard Wallpaper

Fourteen checkerboard wallpapers, few of them plain: navy and cream squares holding cut-paper profiles or small ink drawings, indigo patchwork under gilded sprays, hand-painted squares in teal and grass green, a gingham in kelly green and sky blue. The grid is the excuse; what sits in the squares is the point.

Choosing checkerboard wallpaper

Where it works

Checks suit kitchens, bathrooms, hallways and children's rooms, anywhere with a hard floor and straight edges. Painted Squares and Mint Checkerboard, soft-edged and hand-painted, are the kitchen and nursery designs. Portrait Checkerboard and Midnight Checkerboard, navy and cream with a figure or a drawing in every square, belong in a cloakroom or a corridor where people stand close. Emerald Gingham, kelly green crossing sky blue, is the one for a boot room or a garden-facing kitchen.

Picking between the designs

Decide whether the squares are empty or full. Empty: Painted Squares in teal and green, Mint Checkerboard, Washed Squares, Rounded Squares in shuffled greys and coral, Gold Squares, all of which read as colour first. Full: Portrait Checkerboard with women in profile, Checkerboard Bouquet with a person cradling daisies or a striped vase in every black or cream square, Midnight Checkerboard with a different small drawing in each, Portrait Collage. Then the edge: Painted Squares and Washed Squares wobble, which suits an old house; Portrait Checkerboard is crisp. Indigo Patchwork, worn-cream and indigo squares under gilded botanical sprays, is the one that reads as old tilework rather than a game board. Emerald Gingham and Blush Plaid are the woven end, where bands cross rather than squares tile.

Related

The wider grid family is in geometric wallpaper, the plaids in cottagecore wallpaper, the black-and-white ones in monochrome wallpaper. For the diamond version of the check, read What is a harlequin pattern.