Roll up, roll up: Wallpaper is making a roaring comeback

Wallpaper is having a moment. Kya deLongchamps shows how to work its wow factor

Hit-the-North is a real cork wall covering with a post-industrial cityscape inhabited by skulls, cats and owls. The texture is not only attractive but also insulates and dulls noise between rooms. Its mid-century atmosphere looks fantastic with red brick and uneven vintage plaster. The creator here is Drew Millward, famous for his psychedelic posters for contemporary rock bands including The Foo Fighters. The panels are 130cm wide and sold by the metre. Application is paste-the-wall using standard pre-mixed wallpaper paste, from €266, Themonkeypuzzletree.com.

NOTHING unfurls instant personality like wallpaper. Overwhelmed by choice and shy of the commitment? With paste-the-wall and peel-and-stick varieties, what goes up can come down just as easily. Personality design is making a roaring comeback into our mannerly grey interiors for 2026.

Demonstrating the transformative power and versatility of highly pigmented colour, Put your stamp on it, by Sorbet Dreams, summons a sunshine-drenched escape. Renting? You may be allowed to utilise peel-and-stick application wallpaper (check with your landlord). The high-quality, fully FSC-certified paper, with water-based inks, is environmentally friendly and colourfast and also available in a paste-the-wall version; 10m from €238 per roll (made to order), Sorbetdreams.com.

Mind the Gap papers, made in Transylvania, are jazzed up this season with a range reflecting the rhythm of one of the great musical movements of our time. Jazz Live offers sumptuous contemporary colours and enervating pen sketches. Feel the beat as you're transported to the nightclub floor, with swaying indoor palms, gyrating dancers, a humming band, and suspended chandeliers. Bold, sophisticated and cool, they let you push back a lower ceiling with some vertical tuning, Mindtheg.com.

Wallpaper is on the ascent, with stunning period dramas taken from archival décor sources reinterpreted by fresh, young designers. Together with flourishing genres including super-sized surrealism, these characterful stunners don’t have to roll out over every wall to guide a whole scheme. Wallpaper is a versatile shapeshifter for feature surfacing, stairwells, and the interiors of cabinetry and offers a powerful interior element against plaster, tile and woodwork.

Layers

In the right space, this Sash wallpaper adds dynamic colour to a sophisticated space, leading the eye into the living quarters with a confident flourish; from €44.20 per metre, Bobbibeck.com.

Alice Green offers this stylised botanical pattern for your fifth wall, taken from the traditional Russian folk art and painting style, khokhloma, usually used on wooden boxes, tableware and furniture. It's very cottagecore and can be bought in accessorising fabrics; €156 per roll, Olenkadesign.co.uk (for suppliers or order).

With short squat walls, a horizontal design can draw the eye left and right, while creeping flora or traditional stripes will softly push away a low ceiling. Think of wallpaper as a layering component that sits up against other materials. A complete immersion, including even the ceiling? Deep, dark, handsome tones do exactly what colour-drenching with paint promises — intoxicating sophistication. A petite room brings intricate detail closer to the eye. Let your imagination fly with fascinating line drawings and painterly patterns in downstairs guest loos and smaller bedrooms.

Accents

Morning Flowery by Miss Tiff for Wallsauce immerses a simple breakfast bar in a lush rococo border of flowers the size of cabbages. Made-to-measure, it's available in paste-the-wall and peel-and-stick varieties of paper, ideal for rented accommodation; €49 per square metre, Wallsauce.com.

Soft painterly styles in loose brushwork are relaxing to the eye, and in a harmonising pale colour will not overwhelm the space. Step in closer to see hares playing in a sandy landscape by Sanderson. Here they blend into a soft tonal kitchen scheme; Mist/Pebble, Dune Hares from €115 per roll, fabric from €85 a metre, various suppliers.

In terms of trends, flashing metallic accents offer subtle strokes and highlights, transmitting a discreet but opulent glint of 2026. Consider including a mural in a highly genteel, receding design, or something joyfully dynamic with contemporary, juicy colourways. Small design houses and top legacy makers are championing mind-stroking magic in exquisite traceries of chinoiserie, gothic follies, vast rococo blossoms, sensual damask, new graffiti style toile, and painterly botanic themes with a flourish of fantasy. Easily installed, digital murals can anchor a room in a storybook to one wall, customised to your specifications for a surprisingly small spend.

This fabric-style tree-of-life wallpaper was hand-drawn from an antique wall-hanging in Chambalon Castle in Switzerland. Here shown in a magnificent Sunstone/Linen, it's also available in paler tea-stain colours; from €205 per roll, suppliers include Courthouseinteriors.com.

Feature walls in solid paint colours may be out, but dramatic murals are not, and with digital prints offering exquisite detail, it's little wonder. Large rococo blossoms are having a moment and these gorgeous peonies would add a sensual note to any master bedroom; from €23 per square metre (design W01933), Uwall.ie.

Expect to see our outrageous flirt with the 1970s and 1980s intensify. This retro-revival delivers bold abstract impastos and wild psychedelic subject matter worthy of a double-album cover.

Eye-watering theatre is not for everyone. For a new-neutral finish, look into the imprinted, subtle textures and quiet linear prints in earthy mocha, soft green and denim blue. Patterns indicating bamboo, reeds, grasses, delicate motifs, slender battens, muted “watercolour” stripes, and linen-look papers offer a quiet, formality that easily combines with harmonising colours and accents. Luxuriant graphic repeats remain a perennial favourite for everywhere from calming sleeping quarters to indulgent dining rooms.

When installed, murals disguise any joins to perfection with searing accuracy. Based on the size of the room, use your supplier's online tools to work out how many rolls you need, drop and repeat, including the position of any doors and windows. You may need as much as 10cm to 15cm to match up a repeat, depending on its complexity; Rainbow Tickles by Miss Lolo, from €157, Thebeigeepidemic.com.

Divine Savages was founded by husband-and-wife team Tom Kennedy and Jamie Watkins, who are always on the prowl for eclectic storyboards. Downstairs guest loos are perfect for curating something oddly lovely in dark and dense patterns. Distilled art deco, this feline motif is inspired by the couple's own cat Ripley, with a playful leopard print background and embellished with luxurious trending metallic to the champagne glasses and cat's eyes; €190 per roll, Divinesavages.com.

Opting for expensive paste-the-wall paper? Save your nerves and your pricey metres with a professional install. Honing your DIY skills? Choose a paste-the-wall product with random repeats and let your walls do the talking.