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How do I Choose the Best Living Room Wallpaper?

Patti Kate
Patti Kate

To choose the best living room wallpaper you should take into consideration price, style, and availability. If you are on a limited budget, there are sources for discount wallpaper such as outlets and stores that offer senior citizen discounts. Choosing an appropriate wallpaper pattern for your living room typically will involve matching the patterns with your living room decor. Think of color schemes that blend well together and whether your style is contemporary or modern. You may also want to consider whether the wallpaper you choose is durable and easy to clean.

Taking into consideration that living room wallpaper will typically not require heavy-duty coating, you may want a standard coating of vinyl. Ask the sales representative if the material of the wallpaper is easy to maintain. Being able to easily wipe down a smudge or spec of dirt with a simple damp cloth will be a definite advantage.

Living room wallpaper should match living room decor.
Living room wallpaper should match living room decor.

If you choose patterns such as stripes or geometric shapes, you need to consider the difficulty in matching the exact shape when applying separate sheets. For instance, when the roll of wallpaper ends around the edge of a window, the next piece you apply may be difficult to match up exactly with the pattern. Solid colors may work best if you don't have the patience for matching around edges and corners.

Use swatches to choose a color before you apply wallpaper.
Use swatches to choose a color before you apply wallpaper.

If your living room furniture is in a modern decor, you'll most likely want to apply modern wallpaper. If you cannot find an exact color to match your furniture, go for neutral shades. Be careful not to choose a color that will clash with your decor. If your living room has low lighting, you may wish to consider warm earth tones, such as brown, rust, or green.

Many wallpaper suppliers provide swatches for customers to try out.
Many wallpaper suppliers provide swatches for customers to try out.

Many wallpaper suppliers will give you swatches or samples of various patterns so you may visualize how it will look with your home decor. You may also be presented with a wallpaper book of various patterns to consider. This type of book holds countless designs and displays a sample of virtually every style available in stock. Most hard-to-find styles can be ordered directly from a catalog.

Another consideration when shopping for living room wallpaper is the size of the room you wish to decorate. If your room is small, you may want to avoid selecting a pattern with extraordinarily large shapes. This may be too overwhelming in a small room. Conversely, if you have a fairly large room to work with, you might do well to choose larger prints or patterns.

Be sure to select your living room wallpaper with the emphasis on a style that will timeless. Trendy styles may look appealing at the moment, but somewhere down the line the style may appear outdated. A classic look will typically serve you over a longer period of time.

Discussion Comments

pastanaga

@pleonasm - It's not really that difficult as long as you plan ahead and don't do anything too strange. And there are ways to get around having to match everything up anyway.

We recently put up wallpaper in the living room and we wanted to have stripes, but didn't want the whole room to look like a cage.

So we went with a kind of modern idea and have a feature wall that was painted in a solid color and the stripey paper on all the other walls. It looks really good and it was very easy to pull off.

pleonasm

@irontoenail - Wallpaper is such a fun thing to do yourself though. I can remember loving it when I was a kid, because it was just so satisfying to pull off the old paper in strips and to soak the new paper in water and then put it up.

I guess I missed the more difficult time when people had to mix the paste and put it on the wallpaper (of course, some still do this). It was tough work but it kept us entertained.

I don't know if kids are the best labor to use if you're planning on living room wallpaper with a pattern though. We weren't much use at matching up strips or anything like that. Dad had to do all of that sort of calculation himself.

irontoenail

Another option if you don't want to wallpaper is to just paint the walls. My parents recently repainted a couple of rooms and I was surprised to find out that they were paint in the first place. It was done in a kind of textured style and I'd always assumed it was wallpaper. Paint was much easier to put up though.

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    • Living room wallpaper should match living room decor.
      By: 3desc
      Living room wallpaper should match living room decor.
    • Use swatches to choose a color before you apply wallpaper.
      By: Artur Marciniec
      Use swatches to choose a color before you apply wallpaper.
    • Many wallpaper suppliers provide swatches for customers to try out.
      By: phaendin
      Many wallpaper suppliers provide swatches for customers to try out.