Yellow Wallpaper

Choosing yellow wallpaper

Where it works

Most people reach for yellow when a room feels dim. It does help. Just not always the way you'd hope. Butter yellow on a north-facing wall can go faintly green in that cool light, so we'd use a mustard or a gold there instead. A kitchen that gets morning sun is more forgiving: Citrus Bough scatters lemons across a chalky cream ground, little points of light all over the wall. Darker kitchen? Lemon Branch sets its lemons on pale gray-blue with black ink sprigs, and it looks sharp beside white tile and brushed nickel. In a dim hallway we'd hang Gold Peony, big pink and cream peonies over warm mustard, with oak or walnut nearby. Gray-washed wood fights it.

Picking between the designs

Next, how loud should the wall be? Some of these keep yellow to a few spots, like the quinces in Quince Branch or the finches in Silver Songbird. Some put it everywhere. Golden Dahlia is a checkerboard of gold squares, some matte and some metallic, so the check comes forward or falls back as the light moves. Painted Tile and Brushstroke Daisy pair mustard with cobalt on white, the kind of thing you'd hang behind open kitchen shelves stacked with blue and white plates. And if you'd rather not play it safe? Lemon Butterfly hangs lemons and butterflies on hot pink. It's a lot. In a laundry room, that's the point.

Related

The lemons and quinces also sit in fruit wallpaper. Deeper mustards and metallic finishes are in gold wallpaper, and if the blue and yellow tiles caught your eye, there's more cobalt in blue wallpaper.