Although there was likely a period of time when moving into a house filled with patterned wallpaper meant a real need for major renovation, these days it feels like wallpaper is most often a win. Whether you want a traditional design or something more wild, a standard roll or a peel-and-stick option, everything is out there. Adding a patterned wallpaper to an entire room, an accent wall, or tiny powder room is a great way to refresh a space. We rounded up five amazing examples from a striped spare room in London to a moody flamingo moment in a D.C. hallway. This trend isn’t going anywhere, so get that patterned wallpaper into your home.
Architect Nicholas G. Potts and National Gallery of Art curator Aaron Wile lucked into finding a dream apartment to renovate just one floor above them. The 950-square-foot property was originally constructed in 1925, and Nicholas and Aaron imagined what it could look like if modern choices complemented the richness of that era. “We’ve both lived in New York and Europe, and we wanted those prewar details alongside more contemporary materials,” Nicholas says. “It’s not a lot of square footage, and the existing plan was fairly chaotic. So this sort of 1920s fantasy [we had] was also about articulating areas, reintroducing walls, and approaching every square inch with intention.”
Aaron’s curatorial knowledge came in handy for one particularly striking accessory: The flamingo wallpaper in the vestibule. “The vestibule is this tiny space, and the wallpaper creates this whimsical moment that makes it special—it’s a happy accident that its colors match the stone in the bathroom so well,” he says.
Homeowners Adam and Beth, along with their two elementary school-aged sons, were recent transplants from the Bay Area when they bought this 1906-built Craftsman in Minneapolis. It checked all the boxes: Historic and charming, yet updated. Since they weren’t expert DIY’ers and wanted to bring in some modernizations, they called in the help of Victoria Sass, principal and design director of Prospect Refuge Studios. Together they decided to decorate each room to represent a season. Toward the back of the house is the family room, a sun-drenched spot that screams summer. The citrus wallpaper from Jennifer Shorto reminded Adam and Beth of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and the reupholstered vintage chair by Georg Thams is a dose of sunshine.
