Watercolour Bird is one of the gentler designs in George & Minnie's Wallpaper Volume One: birds painted in loose watercolour washes and scattered across a pale ground, with the soft edges and pooled colour that only a brush gives. It is not a busy paper. The birds sit with space around them, so the wall stays light and airy and the pattern is something you notice rather than something you contend with.
It is printed on a 100 per cent non-woven backing, 52 centimetres wide, with a vertical repeat of 51.5 centimetres. There are five colourways, each painted in a single colour: Raspberry, Daffodil, Ink, Emerald and Walnut. Ink is the most classic, and the one we would choose for a bathroom; Raspberry and Daffodil are warmer and suit a bedroom that faces north; Walnut is the quietest of the five.
We would hang it in a bedroom, on every wall, with plain linen curtains in the ground colour and Minnie Check or George Ticking on the headboard, or in a bathroom above panelling, where the birds sit at eye level. It is also a good paper for a small spare room that needs to be pleasant without being memorable. Sold by the roll; order a sample before committing to a full room.
Non-woven papers are usually hung paste-the-wall; check the label for the match type. 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 51.5 centimetre repeat is allowed for, so a wall 3.5 metres long takes seven drops and three rolls, with a spare from the same batch. Plan the drops so a bird is not cut in half at a corner or above a door, and start on the wall opposite the window.
