Choosing navy wallpaper
Where it works
Navy is the dark colour that behaves in daylight, so it goes further than black: a living room that faces north, a home office, a corridor, as well as the dining room and study you would expect. Navy Deco and Gold Honeycomb suit a cloakroom or a bar. Cacao Pods and Teal Protea, botanicals on deep navy, are for living rooms and bedrooms. Midnight Lotus, with ivory lotus flowers along its base, is the formal choice, for a dining room with a long table.
Picking between the designs
Navy with gold is one family: Navy Deco, Gold Honeycomb, Midnight Bees, Jewel Terrazzo with its chips of fuchsia and emerald. Navy with green is another: the Morris Persian Green and Persian Red, mirrored ogee columns of artichoke and pomegranate heads, Navy Acorns with tan acorns on blue-grey oak leaves, Apple Songbird packed with red peonies and figs. Navy with cream is the graphic end: Portrait Checkerboard, cut-paper profiles in alternating squares, and Modern Arches. The Persians are the densest designs here, almost no ground showing; Navy Deco and Midnight Bees are the most open. Sweet Briar Dark and Strawberry Thief Blue are the other Morris designs on navy grounds.
Related
Lighter blues are in blue wallpaper, the greener darks in teal wallpaper, and the navy-and-gold bees and koi in gold wallpaper. For the ogee shape that the Persians are built on, read What is an ogee pattern.