There are some stunning bold wallpaper designs available today but they do have to be applied with care. We don’t mean that they should only be hung by a an experienced decorator but one who also has an eye for detail.

A couple of years age we redecorated our stairs and hall with a design from a collection by Nono. This wallpaper has a single strong motive running down the centre, the remainder of the paper being neutral.

Traditional wallpapering instructions tell you to start in a corner and work along the length of the wall but using this approach would have resulted in some ugly mismatches and the pattern possibly ending up struggling across a corner.

Our solution was to look at each wall individually, work out it’s strongest feature and decide how the wallpaper would fit best. On one wall for instance we had a large mirror that was to be the focal point, another wall had the window in it and again we balanced the wallpaper to match the shape. This meant using more lengths than usual but the result has been more than worthwhile.



Contrast this with a recent job where we supplied a similar bold patterned wallpaper to a customer. The decorator did a fine job of hanging it but we felt something was not quite right. There was a large alcove about 10 ft wide on one wall the pattern was cut through on one side and in full on the other, it just looked unbalanced.

So there you go - before hanging your first length work out how it’s going to look when the whole wall is finished and if necessary start from the centre of the wall or even at any point that will make the pattern fit better. You’ve got to live with it every day so you might as well get it right..