Mark Alexander | Maze Wallcovering

Maze is a design printed over a woven grasscloth ground, and the two things work against one another in a useful way. The print is linear and geometric, a path that turns back on itself at right angles, drawn at a scale large enough to read across a room. Underneath, the grasscloth keeps its own horizontal grain and slight irregularity, so the crisp line of the print never looks mechanical where it crosses the weave.

Rolls are 91 centimetres wide and 7.32 metres long, with a 64 centimetre vertical repeat. Four colourways: Alabaster, where the line is barely a shade away from the ground; Powder, a soft pale blue; Pewter, a mid grey that gives the most definition of the four; and Indigo, the deepest. The grasscloth beneath is a natural fibre, so tone shifts from panel to panel and the print sits a little differently on each drop.

We use Maze in a hallway or a cloakroom, where a geometric has an effect out of proportion to the area it covers, and in a study where a plain wall would feel underdressed. Alabaster works taken over a whole room; Indigo is better kept to one wall. Keep everything else plain, linen at the window and wool on the floor. Order a sample to see it in your own light.

Paste the wall and hang each length dry, matching the 64 centimetre repeat at every seam. With a geometric, a join that is a few millimetres out will be obvious, so butt the seams and never overlap them. Keep paste off the printed face and wipe strays while dry. Order all rolls at once on one batch number, and add a spare roll so a later repair comes from the same run.

• Roll width: 91 cm
• Roll length: 7.32 m
• Pattern repeat: 64 cm vertical
• Application: Paste-the-wall
• Care: Wipe gently with a soft, dry cloth
• Collection: Grasscloth Prints, Mark Alexander
• Colourways: 4 (Alabaster, Powder, Pewter, Indigo)