Choosing modern wallpaper

Where it works

Modern patterns belong in rooms with clean furniture and plain floors: a home office, a living room with a low sofa, a hallway, a kitchen with flat cabinets. Half Moons, charcoal on pale grey, and Stacked Blocks on linen beige are the quiet pair, meant for a bedroom or a corridor. Gold Rain, gold dashes on bottle green, and Bronze Shells, Deco fans on near-black, are the evening designs, dining room or cloakroom. Eames Parlour, mid-century chairs and potted plants in red, teal and mustard, is for a study or a teenager's room.

Picking between the designs

Modern here means one of four things. Textile: Woven Blocks and Stacked Blocks, where the woven texture is the point and the colours are cream, rust, ochre and near-black. Geometric: Half Moons, Teal Stars, Fan Rows, Pinwheels, Petal Tiles, flat shapes on plain grounds. Mid-century: Eames Parlour, Kiln Arch, Little Pots, Stepping Stones, the 1950s drawn with affection. Painted: Olive Ogee, chartreuse waves softened at the edges on chalky stone, Foam Crest, Woodblock Sea. The textile and geometric groups are two or three colours and easy to build a room around; the mid-century group brings five and will lead it.

Related

The straight edges continue in geometric wallpaper, the 1950s designs in mid-century wallpaper, the sparse ones in minimal wallpaper.