Pink Wallpaper

Ninety-nine pink wallpapers, and almost none of them sugary. Most put the pink in the flowers rather than the ground: dusty poppies inside sage foliage, blush peonies on grey-blue, magenta against near-black. The pink-ground designs, Chinoiserie Branch on rose and the fan tiles of Scallop Tiles, are the exceptions.

Choosing pink wallpaper

Where it works

Pink is easier to live with than its reputation. On a cream ground with green leaves, as in Sage Poppy or Cream Poppy, it reads as garden rather than nursery and suits a kitchen or a hall. The blush-on-grey designs, Blush Peony and Peony Songbird, are the composed ones for a bedroom. Save the hot pinks, Charcoal Peony on near-black or Scallop Tiles in hot pink and teal, for a powder room or a dining room where a jolt of colour is the point.

Picking between the designs

Decide first whether the pink should be the flower or the wall. Flower-pink designs are the majority: poppies in Sage Poppy and Mauve Poppy, peonies in Plum Tapestry and Blush Peony, wild roses in Folk Rose, dahlias in Peach Dahlia. Wall-pink designs are fewer and louder: Chinoiserie Branch sets birds and a peony on a rose-pink ground, and Tigers & Dragons prowls a blush ground in flat colour. Then check the foliage, because that is what sets the temperature: sage and olive keep pink cool and countryish, while the near-black leaves in Peach Dahlia and Charcoal Peony make it evening. The Morris Pimpernel Pink is for anyone who wants the pink barely there, blush flower heads inside slate-blue leaves.

Related

Most of these also live in floral wallpaper; the cream-ground sprigs in cottagecore wallpaper; the dark-ground pinks in moody floral wallpaper. For the softer, ribboned end of the style, read What is coquette.