Moody Floral Wallpaper

Choosing moody floral wallpaper

Where it works

These want lamplight. We'd hang them in a dining room or a library, in a bedroom that faces the street, or in the little cloakroom downstairs. Midnight Bouquet and Painted Bouquet are the classic version. Old-master bouquets, black packed into every gap between the stems. Paper a dining room in either and you're eating inside a box of lit flowers. Got real daylight and still want the mood? Pick one that keeps pale leaves on the wall. In White Anemone the sage and pewter foliage pulls at your eye as hard as the flowers do. Wild Daisy is cream blooms on scuffed teal plaster that reads lighter than black (we'd hang it in a bedroom with an east window).

Picking between the designs

What separates them is how the flowers got made. Midnight Bouquet and Painted Bouquet are painted, and so is Ink Peony: big blooms, shaded petals, light falling from one side. Stitched Peonies is embroidery, or looks it. Dense wool in magenta and orange around yellow centres, so even in print the wall has a textile surface. Peony Bouquet is drawn. Antique-gold scrollwork runs between the blooms and it ends up closer to a Victorian paper than a painting. After that, check the colour under the black. Brown Leaves runs warm (copper oak leaves on brown-black), while Gold Artichoke runs cold, crimson thistles caught in a teal cage. Want the drama of the flowers on a cream wall? That's Mauve Poppy.

Related

The darkest grounds turn up again in black wallpaper and dark botanical wallpaper. The same density, done in a period key, is in Victorian wallpaper.