Home Wallpaper

Home wallpaper has several advantages.  First, it is suitable for walls that are rough or uneven, and assists in keeping the rooms tight and warm.  Also, there are many patterns and colors of wallpaper to match the decor of any room.  A room can be repapered whenever needed or desired.

Colors and Patterns of Home Wallpaper

Plain, solid colors are the most satisfactory for living rooms.  The absence of any pattern or desing brings out in full the pictures or ornaments on the walls, and helps to give a quiet air of luxury to the room.  Two-toned or double-toned papers, having a subdued pattern in another shade or tint of the same color as the groundwork may also be used for the living room.

Home Wallpaper

How to Choose Home Wallpaper

The effect of home wallpaper cannot be judged from small samples.  If possible, choose from the stock itself and have two or three widths unrolled side by side to get the general effect.  Remember that vertical stripes make a room seem higher than it is, and large figures and dark colors make it seem smaller.  A simple design in natural outlines, as a landscape or flowers and foliage, has perspective and tends to give an effect of greater width.

Figured papers in dainty patterns, as poppies, roses, or other natural blossoms, are more suitable for bedrooms than for living rooms.  They can be selected to suit almost any kind of color scheme.  Solid colors seem to make the walls retire, so they give the effect of broadening and enlarging the room.  This is especially true of the lighter shades.

Adapted from “Household Discoveries”, 1909