Tour a Brooklyn Home With Wall-to-Wall Wallpaper

For Selin Zalma and Siddhesh Karmali, home is where the fun is. “Most people take life too seriously — my husband and I included,” says Selin. “We wanted our house to remind us to have a good time.”

The couple, who has two young sons, found the perfect blank slate in a newly renovated 1,400-square-foot apartment in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. Before they moved in, Selin and Siddhesh called their friend Rozit Arditi, a designer Selin knew growing up in Istanbul. Together, Selin and Rozit spent months poring over wallpaper samples, hunting for ways to liven up the apartment’s stark white walls. “It wasn’t a chore at all — the patterns we looked at were really fun,” says Selin. One by one, they covered each room in an eye-catching print that would make the whole family smile.

The family lives on the top two floors of this 1901 townhouse.

Happy, modern and colorful: This abstract Eskayel wallpaper hit all the right notes for Selin and Siddhesh. They used the print on every wall here and in the dining room, too. A midcentury-style sofa from Article and mismatched armchairs (the teal one is from Anthropologie; the pink is from Room & Board) give the space a lived-in look.

To give the white kitchen personality, Selin and Siddhesh wallpapered right up to the cabinets. They also installed a trio of caged pendants from The Future Perfect over the peninsula and added West Elm barstools. “When I was a kid, people stopped by our house all the time,” says Selin. “This open layout is perfect for that casual way of entertaining.”

You might think that a busy wallpaper would clash with artwork, but here it’s the perfect backdrop for a painting by Eric Dever. The wood and marble table, from Design Within Reach, is from the couple’s last home. “We made all our decisions around it,” says Selin. For contrast, they chose black bentwood chairs, also from Design Within Reach.

The shades of purple in this Rebecca Atwood wallpaper inspired the room’s palette. “We used neutrals here but not a lot of them,” says Selin."This brushstroke-print wallpaper is quiet enough for a bedroom but still makes a statement," she says. She loves the dramatic aubergine curtains from Mesken. The red lamps, which the couple has owned for years, add another dose of color.

Truck-print wallpaper by Studio Ditte — along with a fire engine–red bunk bed from Room & Board and a Crate & Barrel dino-footprint rug — turned this space into the boys’ dream playground. “We keep all of their favorite toys and books low so it’s easy for the kids to grab them and put them away,” says Selin.