Wet’n’Wild: Wall-Coverings For Bathrooms

Shopping for wallpaper is perhaps the most pleasant part of the wallpaper task. This article isn’t going to be about making your own wallpaper paste or common accidents involving stepladders; let’s focus on the positive. If you’re wallpapering your bathroom, you’ll be seeing the walls several times a day, cleaning your teeth, washing your hair, relaxing in the bath and so on. So you certainly need to be able to live with your wall-covering choice on a day-to-day basis, plus it needs to be water-resistant. The wrong wall-covering can be a costly and frustrating mistake.

One of the first things to consider is where you want to install wallpaper - on every wall, or in just part of the room e.g. to make a feature wall, or next to a tiled area. The position and style of furniture in bathrooms, such as your bath, electric shower, and airing cupboard needs to be taken into account. You don’t want your beach hut style feature wall to mainly be covered by a toilet cistern.

Next comes the design bit. Gather samples like paint chips (the larger the better), fabric swatches, flooring, tiles, etc. You may be inspired by a certain period or style. Have a good look round bathroom stores with showrooms, as these will give you an idea of how the finished room could look with your shower and storage furniture. Interiors magazines will help you keep up with the latest trends and effects. Keep a mood board or scrapbook of the styles you like. Now it’s time to hit the shops.

Ideally, before you part with your cash, take some wallpaper samples back with you and place them on your bathroom wall so you can see what the pattern is like to live with. You may not want to bath with ‘technicolour’ parakeets every evening after all!