A Plain Guide to Laura Ashley Wallpaper

Laura Ashley is one of those names most people in Britain grew up with. A sprigged floral in a spare bedroom, a soft green in a hallway, a roll bought for a first flat. The brand has changed hands more than once over the years, but the wallpaper is still on sale, and the archive prints that made the name are still the reason people ask for it. Here's what Laura Ashley wallpaper is actually like to choose and to hang, without the nostalgia doing the talking.

Where the wallpaper comes from now

The Laura Ashley papers we carry are made under licence on the Graham & Brown platform. That matters less than you'd think for the look, because the designs are drawn from the same archive that has always defined the brand. It does mean the manufacture is up to date. You get a paste-the-wall paper rather than the older paste-the-paper kind, which makes hanging a good deal easier. If you last papered a room in the nineties and remember pasting long strips on the floor, the method has moved on since.

The specs that matter

Nearly every Laura Ashley wallpaper in the range is the same price, £52 a roll. Rolls are 0.52m wide and 10m long, which is the standard British size, so any calculator or shop assistant will know what to do with it. Almost all of them are paste-the-wall, and many are spongeable, which means a damp cloth lifts most marks rather than a scrub. Buy every roll you need in one go and check the batch numbers match on the labels, because dye lots can shift between print runs. If you want the full method before you start, our guide to how much wallpaper you need and the paste-the-wall versus paste-the-paper explainer both cover it plainly.

Florals first

The florals are the reason the brand exists, and they are still the largest part of the range. Pollington Roses is the classic, a soft rose print that looks like something from an old cutting garden. Poppy Meadow is looser and more painterly. Portland Fern trades flowers for foliage, which reads calmer across a big wall. Gosford is a parrot-tulip print with an offset 64cm repeat, first drawn from an archive painting, and Burnham is a fine leaf trellis that works as a quiet all-over pattern. The colour names tell you the mood on their own: Sage Green, Dove Grey, Pale Seaspray, Natural. Nothing in it shouts.

Damask and toile for something more formal

When you want structure rather than flowers, the damasks do the job. Josette is the French damask most people picture, with a 53cm straight-match repeat and colourways that run from sage green to amethyst. Heraldic Damask in Slate Grey is grander, with a larger 64cm repeat, and it suits a dining room or a single chimney breast. For a print with a scene in it, the toiles are worth a look. Tuileries is a pictorial toile with a 53cm repeat, sold in charcoal grey, midnight blue and sage. The full Toile de Jouy has a much bigger 128cm repeat, so add an extra roll to cover the waste that a long repeat always creates.

Stripes and the quieter patterns

Not every wall wants a flower on it. Farnworth Stripe is a simple stripe with a 53cm straight match. Denwick Stripe is a free-match paper, which is the easiest kind to hang because there is no pattern to line up across the seams. Annecy in Dove Grey is a small-scale damask with a tight 21.33cm repeat, good for a downstairs loo or a narrow hallway where a big pattern would crowd the space. The Lille Pearlescent stripes add a soft sheen with no print at all, which is a gentle way to bring light into a dim corner.

A word on repeats and waste

Two numbers come up again and again across the range, a 53cm repeat and a 64cm one. The rule behind them is simple: the bigger the repeat, the more paper you cut off and bin to keep the pattern matching from strip to strip. A free-match stripe wastes almost nothing. A 128cm toile wastes a fair bit. Work the repeat into your roll count rather than guessing at it, or you will be a roll short on the last wall and waiting on a fresh batch.

Why the colours last

The palette is the real reason a Laura Ashley room still looks right years later. The greens are muted, the greys lean warm, the blues sit somewhere between navy and slate. None of it dates the way a bright trend colour does. If you are building a scheme around one of them, the sage green papers are the easiest place to start, and the damask designs give you the more formal end of the same look.

You can see the whole Laura Ashley range on the site, with the large detail shots and room-set photos that show how a print actually sits on a wall, plus the pattern-repeat figure for every design so you can order the right number of rolls. If you are still weighing it against other brands, the wider wallpaper collection is there to browse alongside it.