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Wallpaper in a Swedish turn-of-the-century apartment

Fredrik Hallengren
Fredrik Hallengren, Writer Guide ยท 4 min read ยท Updated Oct 2026
Garden of Myth and Memory, Sky in a dining room with tall ceiling moldings
Garden of Myth and Memory, Sky in a dining room with tall ceiling moldings

In a Swedish turn-of-the-century apartment, the space between door casings, moldings, and a tiled stove determines how much wallpaper you see. Choose a repeating pattern for several smaller wall sections or a mural for an open wall with room for the composition.

Let the room's existing divisions guide you

First, look at where the visible wall starts and stops. Tall baseboards, wainscoting, or molding below the ceiling already give you a frame to work with. The design will fill the open space between them.

A repeating pattern can follow several of these wall sections without each one needing to show a complete picture. It's a good starting point in a room with several doors and windows. We'd give a landscape or a large floral composition a wall with more uninterrupted space.

If you're wallpapering above paneling, judge the design for that shorter section of wall. A branch that looks good in a floor-to-ceiling image may sit very differently when the wallpaper starts higher up.

A floral pattern can work across several wall sections

Magnolia Season is one of our most ordered classic designs. White flowers and winding branches repeat against a light blue background. We'd choose it to carry the wallpaper around a whole room while still giving prominent door casings and moldings room to show.

You can order a wallpaper sample, a small printed piece of wallpaper, to see how the color and pattern work with the woodwork at home. For Magnolia Season, it shows the pattern at its actual size. Hold it against the wall beside a door casing. You can see how the size of the branches sits alongside the width of the woodwork. Look close up and from the next room, especially if you usually leave the doors open.

On tall walls, you also need to see the pattern across a larger area. The product image shows how the flowers repeat, while the sample helps with scale and color. Use the two together to make your choice.

Give the tiled stove and the design their own space

A tiled stove is already a strong element in the room. It has its own color, its own surface, and often its own corner. We'd think of it as part of the composition rather than something the wallpaper has to compete with.

Vintage Peonies has large drawn peonies on a gray-toned, weathered background. It's a mural, so the composition is placed on the wall you choose. We'd give it a wall where the whole image can show, not the narrow section beside the stove.

Use the preview on the product page with your own measurements. Check where the peonies sit in relation to the top of the stove and the height of the door casings. If the image is cut off right at a flower you like, move the composition before you order.

An older apartment doesn't have to mean a historical wallpaper. Let the room's proportions decide the scale, and choose the design you want to live with.

A modern wallpaper in an older apartment

An older apartment doesn't have to mean a historical wallpaper. A contemporary design can sit well alongside moldings and paneling, as long as the scale suits the wall.

Start from the room rather than the period. Measure the wall you want to paper, note where the woodwork interrupts it, then judge the design against those dimensions. A sample and the preview tool will tell you more than a style label will.

If the apartment has several rooms in a line, look at how the walls read together. A pattern that continues through the doorway keeps the rooms connected, while a single mural gives one room its own character.