How to Incorporate Wallpaper Into Your Home

Real Estate Tips for the Home by Redfin

Redfin, a real estate brokerage who features Historic Homes, Renovated Real Estate & Luxury Listings, recently asked us to weigh in on a blog post about how to incorporate wallpaper into your home. Read on for my two cents about styling your home with mural wallpaper!

Start with a small space

You don’t need to wallpaper an entire room to add some interest. A small wall, entryway, or even closet will allow you to become more familiar with how to wallpaper and is a very satisfying project you can complete in a day. – One Delightful Home

Consider printing photos of your room to help visualize and choose

As a very dominant feature for a room, choosing wallpaper can feel scary. If you don’t have design software, make visualizing the space easier by printing images of your furniture or room, cutting them out, and placing them on your chosen wallpaper pattern. – Sian Zeng

Consider using wall stencils

Wall stencils are a budget-friendly way for creative people to decorate the interior of their homes. Reusable wall stencils are praised by the DIY community because they allow anyone to easily get the look of designer wallpaper with all the excitement of customizing colors and size to create a unique, conversational accent wall. –Cutting Edge Stencils

Try a room that isn’t frequently visited first

Wallpaper is such a great way to add personality, depth, and texture to rooms. If you’re worried about starting out, start with a room people won’t visit often like a laundry room or inside a hall closet for a fun surprise. There are so many versions of wallpaper to choose from. Grasscloth adds a subtle texture and sometimes color that blends in nicely, all the way up to bold attention-grabbing patterns. Find your happy place. – Hey Jen Interiors

Add warmth and texture with a subtle pattern

If you are looking to spruce up your walls with some cool wallpaper but are a bit afraid of the commitment of a bold print, try a more subtle or small-scale pattern to add warmth and texture. One of my favorite patterns (that is also in my home’s entryway) is one that is soft and breezy and gently welcomes you into the house without taking the spotlight or being too in your face. –Sunny Circle Studio

Use unexpected patterns

Your walls can go beyond the expected pattern with custom creations like an antique chart on the ceiling, reproduction of fine art from the MFA, extending the bricks in your wine cellar (on paper), or reproducing an “out of print” wallpaper from grandma’s house. You can have a Chinoiserie, botanical, scenic mural based from any historic period in art or a photographic scene to extend your apparent space far beyond the walls. – Zoë Design

Apply wallpaper to your ceiling or furniture

My go-to when thinking about using wallpaper to enhance a space is to consider the alternative ways that it can be applied. Our natural instincts sometimes tell us that wallpaper can only be applied to specific areas or in traditional ways, such as a feature wall. But I like to encourage people to think about extending this to ceilings and even furniture. A great example would be moving from lining our storage units with wallpaper to using them on drawer fronts. There are many ways to be creative with wallpaper, we just need to be daring enough to try. – Saphron London

Bring the outside in

Families are craving natural, peaceful homes to work and home-school children in right now because of COVID-19. Floral, tropical, and forest wallpaper is an easy way to do this. But when bringing the outdoors inside, remember to choose an eco-friendly paper that won’t harm your family’s air quality or mother earth. Sustainability and non-toxic products are always on-trend. – About Murals

Wallpaper can be temporary

My best advice for any homeowner thinking about adding wallpaper to their home is to not think of it as a forever thing. Removing wallpaper, even traditional pasted wallpaper, comes down with little damage to the walls if installed properly. This can make the decision to add wallpaper a lot less stressful. – Collected Electic

Always measure twice

Wallpaper can turn up the fun in any room with bold patterns and hyped up color. First, pick a pattern that sings to your heart, then check your measurements once, and then again. Next, go for a great peel and stick option. It’s super forgiving and even great for first-timers. You’ve got quick style loaded with fun. – Rave Interior Design

Don’t forget about the ceiling

The “accent wall” can be really effective, but just as often can look like you ran out of wallpaper, or money, or both. For maximum impact in this one-wall scenario (that truly nearly never fails), consider placing it on the ceiling. You can also embrace your dining room and powder room as the “ID” of your home. This is not the place to play it safe. Have fun with color, texture (yes, even grasscloth), and lighting. – Imagine Studios Inc.

Take advantage of stripes

Do you have a room that is not the ideal size? Are you not happy about the low ceiling or wish it was not so narrow? You can use striped wallpaper to change the optical size of a specific space. Using wallpaper with vertical stripes will make a room feel higher, while horizontal stripes will make the room look wider. You can, of course, do the opposite if your ceilings are for example too high. – Wallpaper from the 70s

Create harmony between your furnishings and wallpaper

Worried about growing “tired” of a large scale wallpaper? If you chose one in the palette of nature it’s always going to be easy to live with. Soft blues, greens, tans, and browns are always peaceful. Not everything in a space can be the rockstar. If you choose a stunning wallpaper, let the fabrics and furnishings harmonize with it – Susan Harter Muralpapers

Get creative with whiteboard wallpaper

What if your wall could be more than just a color or design? Whiteboard wallpaper is an easy to use, eco-friendly solution for modernizing your home and adding function to your wall. Create a shopping list, write a reminder, or just allow the kids to have fun drawing over innovative whiteboard wallpaper. – Smarter Surfaces

Try covering wood or styrofoam panels

One of my favorite ways to add wallpaper is to cover wood or styrofoam panels and then hang them in a series along a main wall. It’s a low commitment, high impact way to add a splash of color or a gorgeous pattern to any room. – The Graceful Goose

Choose wallpaper like you would an art piece

Wallpaper is meant to add some happiness to your home. Think of it as artwork when you’re considering which paper to purchase. Does it make you happy? Does it reflect your lifestyle? Does it transition well with the rest of your home? When you answer yes to these questions, you’ve found your perfect wallpaper. – Kerri Rosenthal

Use wallpaper to create a wow factor

Pick a pattern you love, not just because it’s on trend. Find something that adds a wow factor but doesn’t overwhelm the rest of your interior. If you have really fallen hard for a bold pattern but aren’t sure how it’s going to look on your walls, frame a piece and turn it into feature artwork instead. Have some fun in the bedroom and add wallpaper to panelled wardrobe doors! If you want to really go wild with your paper, use it all over in a small room like your cloakrooms and wow your guests. – Muchmore Design