5 Proven Tips for Choosing The Perfect Wallpaper for Your Home

Choosing the perfect wallpaper for your home can sometimes feel daunting. There are a lot of things that need to be considered including choosing the right color, pattern, material and style for your space and budget.

Once you've decided it's time your walls get an upgrade, we're here to guide you with our 5 tips for choosing the perfect wallpaper. And while there are plenty of other factors that you could consider, these are a great start:

1. Choose your space. A good rule of thumb is, if there's a place in your home you don't love, add wallpaper. While this advice sounds quite general, we have found it to be absolutely true! From the sad forgotten corners of your home (powder room, pantry, or closet) to the private living spaces (bedrooms, bathrooms and office) to the main living areas (kitchen, family room, living room), wallpaper is a great choice for adding more personality, texture, color or all three. Wallpaper is a near-instant way to give more interest to a room without taking up any floor space, and without the permanent commitment, cost, mess and work of woodwork paneling or paint.

2. Choose your material. There are a lot of different types of wallpaper for you to choose from, and each wallpaper has it's own benefits and setbacks. Here is a small list of available options on the market today.

• Traditional wallpaper has been the most popular and widely used wall covering in the past. This wallpaper is made of actual paper and typically comes in rolls ranging in length from 25'-35'. Traditional wallpaper comes as either pre-pasted, with the paste dried to the back that must be re-wetted, or requires a wet paste to be applied during installation. This type of wallpaper is permanent and typically takes many hours and elbow grease to remove. Traditional wallpaper tends to be the most cost-effective wallpaper on the market.
• Peel and stick vinyl wallpaper is one of the newer options on the market and has gained a lot of popularity in recent years. This option is attractive to those who want to install the wallpaper themselves but are intimidated by or don't want the mess of installing traditional wallpaper. The other benefits of vinyl wallpaper include clean-ability, and quick and easy removable without leaving any residue or damage behind. The downside of peel and stick wallpaper is that there are many, many options on the market and they are not created equal, so buyers must be careful to be sure they are purchasing a quality paper that will be easy to install and wont damage their walls. This option tends to be more expensive than traditional wallpaper, but also requires less waste since it's often sold in panels that are already matched up, vs rolls that need to be matched up to a repeat.
• Textile wallpapers include fabric and grass cloth wallpapers. These types of wallpapers have a very high-end and luxurious feel but can also be very costly and most require a professional with prior experience with each specific material to install them. 

3. Choose your color and pattern. Once you've chosen where you would like to add wallpaper to your home and which material you would like to use, it's time to think of the overall feeling you are going for in your space. The pattern and colors you choose can have a huge impact on the mood you'll set. Questions to ask yourself include: What are the colors throughout the rest of my home, including the spaces closest to where the wallpaper will go? Will the wallpaper I'm choosing for this space coordinate with the surrounding areas? How much natural daylight does the space get? What are the other fixtures and finishes I'm working with in the space? How do I want the space to feel? Answering these questions will help inform which pattern you'll choose. Because choosing a pattern can be such a difficult decision, we often help our customers choose which pattern they want in their space. 

4. Get samples (highly recommended). There are nearly infinite options in the market of wallpaper. How can you know which wallpaper will be your best option? Wallpaper is not created equal, so we highly recommend you grab samples of the wallpapers you are considering. This will help you distinguish quality, including thickness, clean-ability, ease of install and ease of removal without damaging your walls. And because colors can vary from screen to screen so much, it also helps you be sure the colors and scale will work in your space. Most wallpaper companies will offer some type of sample you can buy beforehand. We offer $5 samples for all of our wallpaper patterns. 

5. Measure your space. Once you've decided on a pattern, it's important to measure your space so you know how much to order. Different companies will offer different size rolls or panels, so it's important to read the details in any product listing to determine how much you will need to buy. Some wallpapers come in rolls which means you'll need to match up the repeat on each panel. For these rolls, you'll need to add in about a 15% waste. Instead of rolls, we offer panels in differing lengths ranging from 5' tall to 10' tall. All of our panels are 24" wide. So if you have a wall that is 10' wide and 9' tall, you will purchase 5 -10' panels. If you need help determining how many panels and which size you need to order, don't hesitate to reach out to us for assistance. We're happy to help!

Finding the right wallpaper for your home can be a daunting task, but these steps can help take a little of the guesswork out and help you be more confident in choosing which wallpaper is the right fit for you and your space.

If you have any other questions, feel free to message us. At Indigo Design Co, it is our mission to help you transform your home into your favorite place on earth.🏡