How to Choose a Wallpaper Colourway for Your Room
Start with the light your room actually gets, then the things in it you cannot change, and why choosing the drawing first and the colour second is a better order
Start with the light the room actually gets, then work outwards to the things in it you cannot change: the floor, the worktop, the sofa, the stone of a fireplace. Choose the colourway to sit with those, not with a photograph. Every Claret & Key design can be recoloured, so the question is not which version exists but which version your room wants.
Start with the aspect
Which way the window faces changes the colour of the light in the room for the whole day, and it changes what a paper looks like on the wall more than anything else does.
- North-facing. Cool, even, blue-toned light with no direct sun. Cool greys and pale blues go flat and slightly cold here. Warm grounds hold their colour: soft ochres, warm stones, greens with yellow in them, deeper tones generally. This is where a room is often better dark than pale.
- South-facing. Warm, bright, changeable light. Almost anything works. Strong warm colours can become intense in the afternoon; cooler and softer tones stay balanced all day.
- East-facing. Bright and cool-warm in the morning, flat by afternoon. Worth considering how the room is used, because a breakfast room and a study want different things from it.
- West-facing. Muted mornings, golden and quite warm from mid-afternoon. Colours that look muddy at 10am can come alive at 6pm.
- No window at all. A hallway, a cloakroom, an interior landing. Daylight is not part of the equation. Choose for the artificial light, and lean into depth rather than fighting for brightness.
Then look at what you cannot change
Every room has fixed elements, and they will win any argument with a wallpaper.
- Floor: wood tone, carpet colour, tile
- Worktops, stone, brick, a fireplace surround
- Large furniture that is not being replaced
- Woodwork, doors and joinery, if they are staying as they are
- The rooms you can see into from this one
Gather what you can physically hold: a piece of the flooring, a cushion, a paint chip. Choose against those rather than against a screen.
Undertone matters more than colour
Most colour decisions go wrong on undertone rather than on colour. A green with yellow in it and a green with blue in it are both green, and they behave completely differently next to an oak floor.
The practical test: put the sample beside the fixed element and look at the two together, not at each in turn. If something looks slightly dirty or slightly sharp, the undertones are fighting.
How recolouring changes the question
Ordinarily, choosing wallpaper means finding the design you like and then hoping one of its three or four ready-made colourways suits your room. Usually one is close and you compromise.
Because every one of our designs is printed to order, colour is not a fixed list. The design can be recoloured to sit with the floor you already have, the green in the next room, or the particular light your north-facing sitting room gets in February.
So the useful order is: choose the drawing first, its scale, motif and mood, then treat colour as the thing that gets solved afterwards, against your actual room. Scale is fixed; colour is not.
Test properly before you decide
- Order an A3 sample in the colourway you are considering.
- Tape it to the wall you intend to paper, not held in your hand, not on a table.
- Look at it in the morning, in the afternoon and under lamplight at night.
- Move it to a different wall in the same room. Light falls differently on each one.
- Put it beside the floor, the sofa and the woodwork.
- Live with it for a week before deciding.
A few things worth knowing
- Screens lie. Every monitor and phone renders colour differently, and none of them shows a matte surface accurately. Never commit from a screen.
- Paper is not paint. A colour that works as a flat wall can behave differently broken up by a pattern, because you are seeing it in small areas against other colours.
- Dark rooms are allowed to be dark. A deep colourway in a north-facing room or a windowless hall usually reads better than a pale one straining for light that is not there.
- Look at the whole home. The rooms you can see into from this one are part of the decision.
How do I choose a wallpaper colour?
Start with the room's aspect and the light it gets, then choose against the fixed elements you cannot change, such as floor, stone and large furniture, using a physical sample rather than a screen.
What colour works in a north-facing room?
Warm-toned colours, or genuinely deep ones. Cool pale colours read flat and cold in northern light.
Can I change the colours of a design?
Yes. Every design can be recoloured, which is the whole point. You choose the drawing, then the colour is made to suit your room.
Can I change the scale?
No. Scale is part of the drawing and is fixed. Colour is what is customisable.
Should a small room have pale wallpaper?
Not automatically. A small room with a deep colourway often feels considered and enveloping rather than smaller.
How do I match wallpaper to a floor or a sofa?
Hold a sample against it and look at the two together. Undertone, whether a colour leans warm or cool, matters more than the colour itself.
