15 Kitchen Wallpaper Ideas To Add Flavor and Flair to Your Space

Given that kitchens are full of heat, humidity and hectic activity of all kinds, they might not seem like the most intuitive spots to deploy wallpaper. Oh, but they are. Think of wallpaper as the garnish or finishing salt that completes your space: Once your appliances, storage and finishes are sorted, wallpaper is the design detail that pulls everything together. Want proof? We’ve assembled a recipe book of wallpapers to suit every taste.

First up: Feast your eyes on this toile-trimmed kitchen that will never go out of style. Classic marble subway tile transitions gracefully to a pale blue toile pattern in this cottage kitchen. Reach for an understated-yet-scenic pattern, like this one, to add interest to a space where there isn’t quite room for artwork on the walls. Two-dimensional glimpses of figures and foliage beside windows and between cabinets add eye-candy without clutter.

A kitchen (or a breakfast nook) is the perfect spot to utilize food-themed paper, like this fruit-clad style by Sur la Mur. As Los Angeles designer and homeowner Katie Zamprioli puts it, “Fruit salad belongs in your kitchen."

Topping this subway-tile backsplash with hexagonal basketweave wallpaper texturizes the monochromatic kitchen’s upper half. The pattern’s black details match the crisp cabinet hardware and the trio of sconces above the window. The paper also provides an elegant backdrop for a pair of rustic floating shelves. Using a medium-scale print, like this one, helps to layer a transitional space without feeling fussy.

This midcentury modern kitchen’s unique soffit feels more like a tray ceiling installed for aesthetic reasons, thanks to a quirky citrus-print paper. Integrate a pattern like this one by subtly repeating its forms and tones in other parts of your room. Here, the lemon-yellow tone recurs in the base of the marble-topped bar.

The Delft blue hollyhocks in the Schumacher wallpaper Knoxville, Tennessee-based designer Shannon Roberts chose for this cottage kitchen are a sophisticated, tone-on-tone pairing with its baby blue cabinetry. A soft, feminine pattern like this one balances the room’s more linear elements, like the vintage farmhouse sink and the striped cafe curtains.

Wallpaper works behind the sink in this case because the marble countertops continue as a low backsplash along the wall. (Typically, it's best to avoid installing wallpaper at counter level behind the sink or stove.)

Integrating a bold, large-scale floral (like the wallpaper in this cheerful Illinois kitchen) is all about pulling a hue directly from the pattern and splashing it across another surface. Here, the designers repeated the vibrant foliage color in the green paint they selected for the walnut-topped island. “The colors make the whole space inspiring,” homeowner Bri Kellogg told HGTV Magazine.

If the idea of a statement island catches your fancy, might we suggest cutting to the chase and applying paper directly to its face? This shiplap-paneled kitchen owes its feminine flair to the poppy-print paper encircling the island.

Pro tip: Choose a hard-wearing vinyl wallpaper to facilitate cleanup, and accessorize with acrylic barstools, like these, to showcase even more of your pattern.

This neutral-on-neutral kitchen’s pale cabinets, countertops and tile were too much of an (admittedly elegant) good thing. Enter the glass-front upper cabinets — which boast a wallpapered backing that carries color and character through the room. Think of a high-impact pattern like this one as a silk pocket square tucked into a tailored suit: It tips an ostensibly formal arrangement into something much more fun.

The bold green paper in this personality-packed Texas home evokes classic Marimekko patterns with its monstera-like, abstracted leaves. Its owners were so ready to graduate from neutral-kitchen drudgery that they carried the verdant tone across the Shaker-style lower cabinets and the island.

This quick and inexpensive DIY can refresh any kitchen, but it's especially satisfying for renters with dingy refrigerators that can't be replaced. Find removable, peel-and-stick wallpaper in a pattern of your choice, then follow our step-by-step instructions to revitalize your less-than-camera-ready appliance.

This downright tiny transitional kitchen has more style than spaces many times its size. Its star is, once again, a jaunty citrus print — but the fun’s just beginning. The fresh green color that begins at the floor and carries through the lower and upper cabinets, the window and the crown molding concludes at a second sunny wallpaper that spans the ceiling. Isn’t it time you wallpapered your kitchen ceiling?

This eclectic bungalow kitchen packs graphic punch into a compact space with touches like the crane-spangled wallpaper framing its exterior door. Their wings’ elegant shape recurs in the smoked-glass pendants above the peninsula and the abstract art above the sink; their warm background, in turn, complements the floral curtains and the cabinets’ rich tone.

This 1920s farmhouse’s once-dated kitchen owes its quirky new character to mint green cabinetry and built-in nooks that act large canvases for Scandi-chic woodland wallpaper. With an ever-changing array of colorful accessories arranged on their shelves, the nooks function as abstract artwork that will never feel stale.

Jungle-green leaves create a succulent backdrop for wall-spanning floating shelves in this sun-drenched kitchen. The wallpaper’s birds of paradise pick up the rich, warm tone of the shelves’ stain, a motif that carries to the lower cabinets, the island’s base and the quilted stools. When you’ve papered a wall at one end of your kitchen in this manner, make a similar move by pulling an accent color from the pattern back through the rest of your space.