Gold Wallpaper

Twenty-eight gold wallpapers, and gold here is mostly a partner: engraved bees on navy over a honeycomb lattice, koi scales on slate water, mustard behind magenta peonies, Queen Anne's lace in cream line on olive-gold, gold flecks in a smoky midnight ground. Metallic in some, ochre and mustard in others.

Choosing gold wallpaper

Where it works

Gold needs light to do anything, so put it where light moves: a hallway with a window, a bathroom with a mirror opposite, a dining room lit by candles. Gold Honeycomb and Midnight Bees, gold on deep navy, are the dining room and cloakroom pair. Koi Pond and Golden Koi belong in bathrooms. Mustard Peony, a bright mustard ground under pink and magenta peonies, is the one for a room with poor light, because the ground itself stays lit. Bee Meadow, cream line on olive-gold, is subdued enough for a bedroom.

Picking between the designs

The first split is metallic against matte. Metallic gold, the kind that catches light: Gold Honeycomb, the koi, Gilded Plum, Gilded Dogwood, Gold Grid with its raised gold outlines, the gold flecks in Midnight Blossom. Matte gold, which is ochre and mustard: Mustard Peony, Bee Meadow, the pears in the Orchard Song mural. Then how much of it: in the bee and koi designs gold is the motif and the ground is dark; in Mustard Peony and Bee Meadow gold is the ground and the motifs are something else. Violet Cosmos and Lavender Sweep use gold as a thread through watercolour, the lightest touch here.

Related

The navy-and-gold designs are also in navy wallpaper, the koi in fish wallpaper, the mustard grounds close to orange wallpaper. We compared the metallics in Best metallic wallpaper.