Choosing bedroom wallpaper — the best designs, colours and where to put them

The bedroom is the best room in the house for wallpaper. It is where you want to feel calm, cocooned and at ease, and the right design sets that mood the moment you walk in. Because it is a private, low-traffic space, you can be as restful or as bold as you like — a soft watercolour for serenity, or a deep, dramatic floral for cocooning luxury. Here is how to choose bedroom wallpaper, and where it works best.

The wall behind the bed

The single most effective place for bedroom wallpaper is the wall behind the bed. It becomes a natural headboard-height feature, framing the bed and giving the room a focal point, while the other walls stay plain and restful. Because our designs are made-to-measure murals, the design is scaled to your exact wall so it fills it seamlessly, with no repeating pattern to line up. It is the simplest way to make a bedroom feel finished and considered.

Bedroom wallpaper ideas by mood

For a calm, restful bedroom, soft watercolours, gentle florals, misty forests and sage or blush tones create a soothing backdrop that is easy to wake up to and easy to live with.

For a cosy, cocooning feel, deep and dramatic designs come into their own — a dark floral, a rich forest green or a deep navy behind the bed wraps the room in colour and feels wonderfully hotel-like at night.

For a romantic bedroom, pink florals and painterly peonies are soft, warm and timeless without tipping into sweet.

For a light, airy bedroom, white, neutral and botanical designs keep the room bright and fresh, especially in smaller or north-facing spaces.

For character and depth, a mountain or landscape scene behind the bed feels like waking up to a view, adding calm and a sense of space.

Choosing your colour

Blue is one of the most restful bedroom colours — soft blues feel airy, while navy is cosy and enveloping. Green is calming and grounding, from soft sage to deep forest. Pink brings warmth, especially in blush and dusky tones. Dark shades make a bedroom feel cocooning and intimate, and neutrals keep it light and flexible. Choose the shade around the mood you want, and let the wall behind the bed carry the colour.

Which material to choose

A bedroom is a dry, low-traffic room, so any of our four materials works well. Peel-and-stick is a popular choice if you rent or like to change your look often, as it goes up without paste and comes away cleanly later. The two paste-the-wall papers give a hard-wearing finish for a more permanent room. You choose your material, and see the price for your exact wall size, on each product page.

Feature wall or whole room

A single feature wall behind the bed gives you impact with plenty of light elsewhere, and it is the most popular and cost-effective choice. Papering the whole room commits fully to the look and suits calmer, softer designs that will not overwhelm the space. As a rule, the bolder the design, the more it wants a wall of its own.