A dressing room next or close to the bedroom and bathroom offers additional storage space for clothes, shoes and accessories and helps to keep the house tidy. Ideally, the walls should be used for shelving, wardrobes or chests of drawers and coat racks.
Choosing the right wallpaper for this room is dependent on the interior design concept and the layout. Other factors to consider are the light situation (i.e. daylight or artificial, how bright is the room?) and the ceiling height. In terms of wallpaper choice, the possibilities are endless: topical motifs, e.g. shoes, clothes, fashion, and beauty are as suitable as popular classics like stripes, flowers or baroque designs, amongst many others.
In this Wallpaper Guide, we will look at the dressing room from all angles and at some detail and provide you with valuable tips and fantastic inspiration.
Wallpapers in dressing rooms - it all depends on the interior design concept
Today, there is a huge array of modular storage systems with a large variety of different elements perfect for clothing, footwear and accessories. In dressing rooms, the walls are usually covered with these useful storage solutions. Larger rooms offer space for mirrors or chairs. Let's look a bit more closely at the options for dressing room furnishings. These are essential considerations when it comes to choosing the most suitable wallpaper.
Open storage solutions without back walls or doors
Dressing rooms usually contain areas for hanging or folded clothes, shoes, underwear, socks, ties, belts and bags. Wall areas will be used according to these requirements. For instance, shelving might be put up along the entire length of one wall, arranged cleverly so that there is enough room for jumpers, trousers, bags, and footwear, whilst another wall might be fitted with clothing rails for hanging garments. Alternatively, mobile clothes rails with wheels are an option. These open systems can be mixed with medium-height chests of drawers for underwear, socks, accessories, or with shoe cabinets. Many manufacturers also offer open shelving systems with integrated drawers which can be arranged according to requirements.
The main advantage of these open systems without backs or doors is that the wall behind them is visible - and crying out for a gorgeous designer wallpaper! The options are to just beautify one feature wall with a lovely pattern or motif wall décor, or put it up on all walls. When choosing your patterned wallpaper, consider whether the pattern demands a lot of attention and/or if large parts of it will be covered with clothing/furniture. The effect of large-scale or three-dimensional patterns, for example, can be impaired by visual interruptions like shelving. Here's a rule of thumb: The less of the wall is visible, the less opulent or attention-grabbing the pattern should be. Geometric patterns with 3D effects are also less than suitable for walls with shelving etc.
Another option is to combine two different pattern wallpapers, but of course they need to match and create a harmonious ambience. Geometric wallpapers in similar (or the same) colours, but with different patterns (e.g. stripes and squares or dots) can be extremely attractive. However, if you'd rather stick to just one pattern or design, there is a whole plethora of motif themes. Here are just a few examples: Baroque, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Romanticism, Flora, Fauna, Modern Art, Vintage or Exotic.
The size and arrangement of the pattern should be in keeping with the height and width of the room. Patterns can optically lengthen or shorten a room, make it look wider or narrower. In this context, wallpaper colours also come into play.
In terms of care characteristics for dressing rooms - more precisely that of your chosen wallpaper - remember that these areas are highly frequented and subject to higher demands. Pieces of clothing will be taken out and/or put in on a daily basis, and clothes hangers might scrape along the wall on hectic mornings. In other words, the wallpaper needs to be robust and resilient, with a hard-wearing surface. Vinyl and non-woven wallpapers are often wash-resistant. Information regarding the specific level of washability (e.g. highly wash-resistant or scrub-resistant) can be found in the article descriptions for each wallpaper in our on-line Shop.
Imitation leather wallpapers, for instance with a croc finish, tend to look exceedingly sophisticated, especially in outré colours and combined with white furniture. Fortunately, their effect is not impaired by optical interruptions. In addition, the vinyl surface means that they are wash-resistant and very robust.
Walls with semi-open or closed storage and wardrobe elements
Semi-open systems consist of shelving and storage elements, some with integrated drawers and clothing rails, that don't have doors (but do have backs). They can often be arranged in any order, along all the walls of a room, and almost up to the ceiling, if required.
Closed systems are usually equipped with hinge, sliding, or gliding doors. All of them have pros and cons, and the choice is down to personal priorities. Some people prefer it if their clothes, shoes and accessories are packed away in an air- and dust-tight space. Others would rather have direct access, as provided by open or semi-open systems. Closed systems make the room look neater and more spacious, but they can look a bit sterile and not terribly exciting.
Half open or closed systems tend to cover the walls behind them, especially if they are stacked up all the way to the ceiling. As a result, patterned wallpapers are rarely used; instead, most people choose plain-coloured wallpapers or simply a lick of paint.
For semi-open or closed storage or wardrobe systems that rise up to almost the entire height, the ceiling presents an opportunity for creative design with wallpapers. Despite the fact that wallpapering ceilings is a slightly more elaborate process, the results of adding exclusive wallpapers with unusual designs or patterns are well worth the effort. They upgrade a room considerably, and provide an element of sophistication. When it comes to choosing colours and patterns, the height and light situation come into play. For ceilings, glamorous wallpapers with glass beads or effect foil or warming flock wallpapers with a velvety touch are also very suitable.
Dressing rooms with sloping ceilings
Dressing rooms in the top floor of a building usually have sloping ceilings on at least one side. This limits the amount of space available for storage systems and furniture. The same is true for skylights, as they need to be accessible. Custom-made built-in wardrobes that make optimum use of the given space are often extremely expensive. As a result, more often than not much more affordable standard models are used, but this usually means that they don't quite make full use of the width and height of the room. Gorgeous pattern and design wallpapers on sloping ceilings create a balancing sense of harmony, distract from the limited space situation and brighten the room. If the remaining walls are used for open storage solutions, plain-coloured wallpapers or just paint are best, picking up and matching one of the colours of the wallpaper on the sloping ceiling. White provides the perfect contrast to many strong or pastel colours.
Loft conversions can also potentially be used as dressing rooms. Low clothes rails, shelves or chests of drawers can be arranged directly under the sloping ceiling, the gable walls remain free, and a large mirror or a comfy chair add to the overall picture. The visible areas of the sloping ceiling as well as the gable walls are veritable creativity zones for beautiful wallpapers. As before, stunning contrasts between plain colours and patterns can be achieved by choosing striking motif wallpapers for the gable walls whilst keeping the visible areas of the sloping ceiling in just one colour (wallpaper or paint).
Ideas for using wallpapers to add visual accents to dressing rooms
Not every wall of your dressing room needs to be covered in storage systems. Depending on furniture arrangements and room layout, there could be large free/uncovered wall areas. Make use of these "gaps" by adding stunning wallpaper highlights. Just one or two lengths of a lovely patterned wall covering can be sufficient to lend more individuality and charisma to a room. If, for instance, the ceiling has been adorned with an extravagant wallpaper, you might want to introduce just one single length of it on a free or only partly covered wall.
Topical wallpapers for dressing rooms
Our Wallpaper Shop provides a huge amount of special pattern and motif wallpapers complementing the purpose of the room and emphasising it in a coquettish, glamorous, artistic or humorous manner. Wallpapers based on fashion style epochs, for example the 20s, 50s, 60s or 70s, can add a soupçon of extremely popular vintage charm to a room. Here is just a small selection:
- Burlesque - Burlesque Dancers, black-and-white
- 1920´s Glamour - Pin-up girls in decorative frames, black-and-white
- Pinup - Pin-up girls in a Fifties style, multi-coloured
- Strongman - Beefcakes in sporty outfits of the turn of the last century, multi-coloured
- Andy Warhol Marilyn - Marilyn Monroe portrait, multi-coloured or black-and-white
- Svärmor - stylised ladies' shoes, black-and-white