Monochrome Wallpaper

Twenty-six monochrome wallpapers: white vines on solid black, cut-paper women in profile tiled edge to edge, bamboo leaves brushed from near-black to pale grey, pen-and-ink swells stacked into a rolling sea, a silver damask on near-black. No colour, and no shortage of pattern.

Choosing monochrome wallpaper

Where it works

Black and white goes in the rooms where colour would fight the furniture: a corridor, a bathroom, a study, a kitchen with strong cabinets. Bamboo Sprigs and Greyscale Bamboo, black leaves on bare white, keep a small room light. White Vine and Pewter Damask, both on near-black, are the dark pair for a cloakroom or a dining room. Portrait Collage and Bouquet Silhouette, cut-paper figures, are for the rooms where people stand close enough to read them, a downstairs loo or a corridor.

Picking between the designs

Start with which colour is the ground. White ground: the bamboo pair, and the wave family, Rolling Sea, Black Wave, Rolling Waves, White Caps, Paper Waves, Ink Surf, all built from pen lines stacked into swells. Black ground: White Vine, Pewter Damask with its mirrored silver tulips and roses, Bouquet Silhouette. Then the amount of ink: the waves and Portrait Collage cover nearly everything; Bamboo Sprigs leaves most of the wall bare. The Inkbloom Calla mural, calla lilies mirrored into tall panels on warm cream, is printed as one unbroken picture, for a single full-height wall. Checkerboard Bouquet and Hand Bouquet are the softer end, flowers in greyscale rather than figures or waves.

Related

The black grounds continue in black wallpaper, the white ones in white wallpaper, the greys in grey wallpaper. For the two-colour check behind Checkerboard Bouquet, read What is an ichimatsu check.