The 7 Best Chimney Breast Wallpaper Ideas
After thoroughly searching for chimney breast ideas, due to my own Victorian terraced house renovation, I wanted to share the 7 best chimney breast wallpaper ideas that I found that showcase different styles that can create a stunning chimney breast feature, along with suggestions on wallpaper for chimney breasts to help you achieve these stylish fireplace wallpaper looks for less.
Whether you’re going for a traditional or contemporary style, these chimney breast wallpaper ideas will provide you with inspiration on how you can approach wallpapering your own chimney breast and create a stylish fireplace.
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#1 Striped Chimney Breast Wallpaper
Similar to how the rule applies with clothes, vertical lines draw the eye up and create the optical illusion of adding height to the space.
The different size stripes available on wallpaper provides you with the option to opt for a more modern and playful approach with a wider cabana stripe, or a more traditional approach by choosing a narrower pinstripe.
Image courtesy of Hubert Zandberg Interiors.
Whichever stripe you go for will create a bold visual impact in on the fireplace, that you can either intensify by choosing contrasting colours in the stripes or tone down by choosing more muted, similar colours in the stripes.
#2 Monochromatic and Textured Chimney Breast Wallpaper
In smaller rooms in particular, be mindful that by only wallpapering your chimney breast in a contrasting bold print the focal point in the room becomes the chimney breast. It’s focal dominance in the room can then make the room appear disjointed and the proportions of the room can appear smaller.
An effective way to counter this is to continue the wallpaper pattern, that’s on the chimney breast, across all the walls in the room. The continuation of the wallpaper pattern all around the room will help to create a cohesive and sophisticated look.
Image courtesy of Katya de Grunwald.
Another option is to choose a wallpaper colour that is similar or matches the colour that’s been used in the alcoves. This will help the protruding chimney breast to visually recede into the wall and therefore not dominate the space.
This living room chimney breast wallpaper idea showcases a monochromatic approach with textured chimney breast wallpaper, it creates visual interest and a feature in the room whilst not dominating the space.
Image courtesy of Blair Staky.
This grey chimney breast wallpaper idea shows a more muted monochromatic approach.
Image courtesy of Hubert Zandberg Interiors.
#3 Floral Chimney Breast Wallpaper
Floral wallpaper isn’t for everyone but it’s been having a resurgence, largely due to the various floral designs that are now available. Petite and dainty floral wallpaper patterns can be used to complement an existing colour scheme like on this kitchen’s chimney breast.
Image courtesy of Little Greene.
This living room chimney breast wallpaper idea showcases how a bolder print can be used to add drama and refinement to a space.
Image courtesy of HÁM interiors.
Image courtesy of Amanda Knox.
The colour choices now available for wallpapering a chimney breast are endless too, which means there are more options for those who wish to choose a more subtle approach or for those who wish to really lean into a maximalist and bold design, like these floral wallpapered chimney breast ideas.
Image courtesy of Architectural Digest.
#4 Art Deco and Geometric Chimney Breast Wallpaper
When trying to achieve an art deco style within a room, wallpaper can be a cost-effective and instantly impactful element to incorporate in the space to help achieve the desired look.
Geometric shapes help to immediately add a more contemporary look to the room. The benefit of using wallpaper is that the print will tend to be a uniform pattern, so visually the shapes will appear in a coordinated order and not aesthetically appear scrambled or jarring on the eye.
Image courtesy of Karen Knox.
#5 Framed Chimney Breast Wallpaper
There may be a scenario where you see and fall in love with a print but you don’t necessarily want to cover the whole chimney breast wall, or room, with the wallpaper. In this instance it can still look extremely chic to create a framed panel on your chimney breast and make a feature out of the print, just in the same way you would with a large piece of art on a fireplace.
There’s also no reason why a framed approach can’t be used when wallpapering the full chimney breast too. The framing in this example, by Little Greene, compliments the room’s dado rail and period skirting boards.
A great chimney breast idea is to use wallpaper as an enveloping ‘frame’ to a fireplace. This example showcases how certain prints can act as a frame around the fire and create a beautiful focal point in the absence of a fire surround.
Image courtesy of Designer Wallpapers.
For more inspiration, take a look at these chimney breast ideas without fireplace.
#6 Picture Rail Chimney Breast Wallpaper
Other fireplace wallpaper ideas include wallpapering up to the picture rail on a chimney breast. It’s a great way of creating the illusion of a higher ceiling. An aesthetically subtle border to the wallpaper can be created by painting the picture rail the same colour as the primary background colour within the wallpaper.
Image courtesy of Designer Wallpapers.
#7 Reflective Chimney Breast Wallpaper
There may be no need for a mirror on your chimney breast when light reflection, to add character and to help make the room appear brighter, can now be created through wallpaper.
In this wallpaper for chimney breast, the light will alter and reflect off the different areas of the wallpaper depending on the viewpoint, natural light and artificial lighting within the room - which will create an always shifting focal feature within the space.
Image courtesy of Hubert Zandberg Interiors.
I hope you’ve found inspiration in these chimney breast wallpaper ideas and if you’d like to see more chimney breast ideas take at look at these clever chimney breast alcove ideas.
