London Check is the big check in George & Minnie's Wallpaper Volume One: a larger-scale drawn check in two colours on a pale ground, the sort of pattern that wraps a room like a rug hung on the wall. It is bolder than the collection's smaller checks and it reads as a proper piece of decoration rather than a background. Rooms papered in it feel deliberate, and a little bit cheerful.
It is printed on a 100 per cent non-woven backing, 52 centimetres wide, with a vertical repeat of 52 centimetres, the same as the width of the roll, so the check squares up neatly from drop to drop. There are five colourways: Aqua/Emerald, Tomato/Daffodil, Periwinkle, Emerald and Parchment. Tomato/Daffodil is the loudest and the most fun; Periwinkle and Emerald are the ones we would use in a bedroom; Parchment is a soft neutral with just enough pattern.
We would hang it in a boot room or a family kitchen, in a downstairs loo where a strong pattern has nowhere to go wrong, or behind the bed in a child's room with plain curtains. It pairs well with the Checkers cotton in the matching colours on a chair seat, which sounds like too much and is not. Sold by the roll; order a sample before committing to a full room.
The roll is 52 centimetres wide; assuming the usual 10 metre length, a 2.4 metre high wall gives three drops per roll after the 52 centimetre repeat is allowed for, so a wall 3.5 metres long needs seven drops and three rolls. Non-woven papers are normally hung paste-the-wall; check the label for the match type. Set the first drop out so that a full check sits at the top of the wall, and expect a part-check in the corners: put it on the wall you see least.
