Wallpaper borders are back and this is how to use them
The wallpaper border is a decorative motif that does what it says on the tin: it can be used as an accent at the top of a wall, where the wallpaper meets the ceiling, above a dado rail, or along the bottom of the wall where the skirting meets the wall. As an idea it dates back to the 18th century, when a movement emerged for highlighting the the perimeters of walls (and hiding their imperfections) with pretty hand-painted illustrations.
Perhaps because of their association with highly decorative rooms of the past, their popularity over the years has waned, in part due to the trend for minimalism and a cleaner style of decorating in the 1990s and early 2000s. In recent years, however, in tandem with the renaissance of the bright, bold schemes we now associate with classic English interiors, we have noticed a recent increase in their favour, and many interior designers and wallpaper makers are producing their own ranges of borders. When they launched their business back in 2014, Kate Hawkins and Sarah McClean of CommonRoom gently began to move the wallpaper barometer, and more recently, the likes of Salvesen Graham and Susie Atkinson have joined the ranks as purveyors of delightful paper trims.
'For centuries, borders have been used in decorating – historically, often to hide imperfections in a room or a wallpapering technique, to complement the design, or, as is often thought in recent years, as a sometimes not-so-stylish addition to a scheme,' says Kate Hawkins, who founded CommonRoom and designed the first border that they made.
‘I think paper borders are rather overlooked. Mauny has heart-stoppingly brilliant examples in its archive and I would love to use them, and not just in their conventional place at the junction of wall and ceiling,’ says interior designer James Mackie, who counts John Fowler’s famous bedroom at The Hunting Lodge, where the walls were decorated with vertical stripes of rose-patterned borders, as one of the best examples of using a border creatively. More recent residents of the house - including Nicky Haslam - have safeguarded Fowler’s brilliant use of the border, and the room has become a touchstone for romantic and imaginative decoration.
There are many ways to use a wallpaper border. It could be to tie together a whole scheme - if you can get your hands on one which picks up on a range of colours you’ve used on the walls, fabric and in artwork. Or, you could find a bold-coloured one that provides a contrast to an otherwise neutral room. There are plenty of more creative applications of a wallpaper border too: as a junction between wallpaper and block colour, or as a trim around a square headboard. There's no reason why a wallpaper border couldn't be used to frame wooden panelling, or, in the case of the interior designer Daniel Slowik, whose bedroom is pictured above, to create an impressive patterned corona to sit over the bed.
While wallpaper borders may not be new concepts, we're thrilled to see them emerging once more. They're most often used by interior designers who love pattern, and might use a border to tie together two separate wallpapers in one room. However, for most people's houses, they're simply a wonderful way to add a decorative note to a room without going the whole hog, and are generally easier and cheaper to deal with than rolls and rolls of wallpaper.
