A plain guide to Cath Kidston wallpaper

Cath Kidston prints are easy to picture before you have seen a single roll. Roses. Little sprigged florals. A gingham, a spot, a stripe. It is one of the most recognisable pattern languages in British homes, and it works on a wall as well as it ever did on an oilcloth bag. Here is a plain guide to the wallpaper: who makes it, what the patterns are, what the specs say, and where it earns its place.

Who makes it now

The wallpaper is made by Graham & Brown under licence. That matters for a practical reason. Graham & Brown papers are paste-the-wall, printed in the UK, and built to a consistent spec across a collection, so what you read on one Cath Kidston roll tends to hold true for the next. You get the archive prints with modern hanging behind them.

The look itself is unchanged from the prints the brand built its name on. Blowsy garden roses, ditsy daisies and posies, the odd butterfly, the odd strawberry. Cheerful rather than grand. It sits in a cottage, a new-build, or a Beverley terrace without trying too hard in any of them.

The patterns, and who they suit

It helps to split the range into three. There are the florals, which are the heart of it. Clifton Floral is the bouquet print, pink and white blooms with fern green foliage, and it comes in a bright blue ground as well as a calmer cream. Garden Rose is looser and more painterly. Archive Rose is the vintage one, the print that looks like it has been on a wall since the 1950s in the best way. Rose & Bows is the sweetest, a small rose tied with a ribbon, good for a child's room without being babyish.

Then there are the sprigs and small prints. Harmony Ditsy Day and Button Spot are the quiet ones, tiny repeats that read almost as a texture from across the room. Button Spot has an 11.8cm repeat, so it is forgiving to hang and easy on the eye in a hallway or a small cloakroom. These are the papers to reach for when you want pattern without noise.

Last are the geometrics and stripes. Painted Gingham is exactly what it sounds like, a soft check with a hand-drawn edge. Canopy Stripe is a wide, relaxed stripe rather than a formal Regency one. Strawberry Garden sits between the florals and the novelty prints, a scattered fruit-and-flower design that works better than it should in a kitchen.

The specs, plainly

Across the collection the numbers are consistent, which makes planning simple. A roll is 0.52m wide and 10m long, and priced at £46. The paper has a matt finish and is spongeable, so a wipe with a damp cloth is fine but it is not a scrubbable bathroom paper. Every roll is paste-the-wall, which means you paste the wall and hang the paper dry, no soaking table needed.

The one figure to check before you order is the pattern repeat, because it decides how many rolls you need. The florals run large. Clifton Floral repeats every 62.4cm and Strawberry Garden every 56.2cm, so there is more waste matching those up. The small prints are the opposite. Button Spot's 11.8cm repeat wastes almost nothing. Match type varies too: Clifton Floral and Rose & Bows are a straight match, Garden Rose and Strawberry Garden are an offset match, and Canopy Stripe is a free match, which is the easiest of the lot because the stripe lines up anywhere.

Which rooms it works in

The florals earn their keep in bedrooms and dining rooms, where you want the wall to be doing something. A large-repeat rose print on a chimney breast, plain paint on the rest, is the safe and handsome way in. North-facing rooms take the warmer colourways well, the creams and the pinks, because the pattern gives cool light something to catch.

The small prints and gingham are the hallway, landing and cloakroom papers. Small repeats hang tidily around the awkward angles you get on a staircase, and a busy little print hides the scuffs a hallway collects. Kitchens can take the spongeable prints on a wall away from the splashback. Keep the bolder florals for the rooms you sit still in.

A few we keep going back to

• Clifton Floral Blue, when a room needs lifting and can take a bright ground. The blue is properly cheerful, not baby blue.

• Archive Rose, for anyone after the vintage Cath Kidston look rather than the contemporary one. It suits older houses.

• Button Spot, the workhorse. A tiny repeat that goes in a cloakroom or the back of a shelved alcove and always looks considered.

• Painted Gingham, for a kitchen or a child's room that wants pattern without a single flower in sight.

If you are weighing up the range, the whole Cath Kidston collection is worth a proper look, and it sits alongside the rest of the wallpaper range if you want to compare it against something quieter. Every listing carries the pattern repeat, the match type and large detail photos, so you can see how a print actually behaves at full size before it goes anywhere near your wall.