Red Wallpaper

Thirty-five red wallpapers, most of them deep: burgundy grounds under ochre sunflowers and pink chrysanthemums, claret damasks, the tomato red of Morris's Strawberry Thief. The lighter end hangs crimson fuchsias and cherries on cream, where red is the accent rather than the wall.

Choosing red wallpaper

Where it works

Deep red is a dining room colour first and a study colour second, and it does its best work in lamplight. Burgundy Sunflower and Wine Chrysanthemum pack their burgundy grounds so tightly that the wall reads as one warm textile, which flatters a room where people sit for a long evening. In a kitchen or a bedroom that gets real daylight, take the cream-ground designs instead: Trailing Fuchsia and Garnet Fuchsia hang crimson bells on ivory, and Painted Cherries and the Pear Orchard mural put the red into fruit.

Picking between the designs

Sort them by how much of the wall is red. Ivory Damask and Garnet Peony are red on red, scrolling acanthus in a tone just off the ground with the flowers picked out in ivory or gold; from across the room they behave like a plain deep red with a sheen. Burgundy Sunflower, Wine Chrysanthemum and Maroon Flora keep the red ground but cover most of it with flowers and leaves. Morris's Acanthus Red and Strawberry Thief Red are the saturated pair, tomato and raspberry rather than wine, and they hold a room on their own without dark furniture. Gold Artichoke is the odd one out, crimson thistle heads inside a teal cage of leaves, more gothic than Victorian, for a hallway or a bar.

Related

The dark-ground florals overlap with moody floral wallpaper, the scrolling designs with damask wallpaper, and the cherries and pears with fruit wallpaper. For what makes a damask a damask, read What is damask.