5 best floral wallpapers – bring the hotel-look home

Hotel interiors are a bit of an obsession of mine. I love a good nosey round a hotel and then translating looks found in my favourites into interiors in the home. Lately I’ve been loving some of the gorgeous wallpapers I’ve seen and these bold, brave prints can definitely be introduced into our lounges and bedrooms, or indeed any room to remind us of our weekends away from the day to day.

Divine Savages – wallpaper wonders – as seen at The Bird, Bath

Summer is our key time to get a staycation in the diary, but now that we are heading into the cooler seasons, a nod to florals will help get us through until those brave first Spring flowers inject some colour and a hint of whats to come.

The Hoxton – Paris

Botanical, floral and garden-inspired prints and imagery have been with us for a season or two now and they’re not going anywhere soon. Its no coincidence that magnolia, peonies and monstera flood our Instagram feeds and who could miss the annual wisteria hysteria? We LOVE our gardens and plants (even if some of us cant keep them alive for very long) and its one of the reasons these wallpapers are so popular.

THAT leaf at The Beverley Hills Hotel

Whether your tastes err on the Scandi and firmly at one-stem-in-a-vintage jar or are more all-out WI-on-acid bold blooms, these wallpapers are nothing if not striking.  The British love-affair with horticulture shows no sign of slowing and its go bold and go home where floral wallpaper is concerned.

Here are five of my faves.

Forbidden Blooms from Divine Savages. “This wallcovering features beautifully illustrated floral blooms mysteriously intertwined with sweeping serpents for a wild and untamed interior”.

Bamboo Garden – Linwood (Tango collection) “Featuring large scale tropical prints with floral accents; Tango is a lively and bright collection”.

Dark Floral II – Ellie Cashman “My floral wallpapers are original, high-quality design products featuring my signature floral prints. They are suited to a wide range of private, public and commercial spaces. Your imagination is the limit! My vision is that walls can be more than just functional structures that divide spaces and hold up ceilings. Walls can be art!”

Wisteria Noir – Pearl Lowe ” “I only really realised how beautiful wisteria was, when we bought a house along a river a few years ago. The wisteria came out in May and it was the most enchanting thing I ever saw. So to be able to put it in a wallpaper or a fabric is a dream.”

Graham & Brown – Bloomsbury Mint “Bloomsbury captures the delicate designs of the 20th Century. Explore the medley of florals and the essence of the Boho Victorian aesthetic in this enchanting wallpaper print”.

THYME

These big, blousy prints are an easy way of capturing that hotel chic and bringing it back home. Two of my top hotel interior crushes are the Artist Residence group and Kit Kemp’s incredible portfolio of hotels. In the Oxford Artist Residence you will find the perfect harmony of florals alongside more cool country-luxe styling. Free standing baths and William Morris wallpaper, yes – but with neon wall art and crazy-good sofas.

Artist Residence – Oxfordshire

If you’re talking hotels you’re probably already talking Kit Kemp, but no conversation about pattern and colour in hotels can actually take place without mentioning her incredible interiors. For a fuller picture, follow her on Instagram. For an idea of some fabulous florals, here is taster.

Kit Kemp at Bergdorf Goodman

The notion of taking hotel looks home with you takes on new meaning when we can now purchase items directly from the designer’s concept. Via such outlets as Soho Home, Hoxton Hotels and Kit Kemp (at Bergdorf Goodman in NYC); soft furnishings, dinnerware, furniture, lighting, textiles and all manner of accessories are up for purchase. Recognising that travellers want to keep a little bit of what they love about a hotel with them, these forward thinking brands have offered us the opportunity to bring the hotel home. So you can take the toiletries and robe back out of your bag….

Soho Home

The Hoxton Holborn

London hotels are plentiful, (this we know )though not all can guarantee to fulfil their claims of being stylish and friendly and yet still come with a capital price-tag. One of my main criteria for hotel selection is the interior inspiration available. If we are getting away from the little handbrakes for a night or the weekend then I am going wring every last drop of enjoyment out of the time away!

Friendly and stylish check-in, good start ( Image @ Enismore)

Levels of inspo run high at ALL the Hoxton hotels and top of my wishlist for next year would be their latest opening in Portland (though I would settle for Paris or Amsterdam, I’m good like that).

Closer to home, the Holborn and Shoreditch open-house style hotels are certainly worth a visit if, like me, time away is not always just about somewhere to crash. Downtime in your average Hoxton means a feast for the eyes as well as the appetite.

There is an excellent selection of room types at Hoxton Holborn; for solo travellers, couples, small families and even an apartment (six rooms to choose from, plus a communal pantry kitchen that flips to a bar of an evening). The Apartment has room for 250 revellers which is presumably ideal for a relaxed wedding or fancy 40th type occasion.

So, to the interiors. The ‘open-house’ style makes for a relaxing vibe and there are sofas and breakout spaces to loll with the papers and a coffee. Or the super cool Hubbard & Bell bar for a cold beer or a pretty decent negroni and some all day dining. There is a Brooklyn/NYC feel to the public spaces (lots of wood, leather and metal accents) which I love. Just a nod though, a theme hotel this is not. You can hang with locals and global citizens alike, everyone is welcome and enjoying the offering.

Elsewhere in the hotel there are great interior touches too. You know I love a well-designed loo (what? It says a LOT about a venue). ThereforeI am happy to report the Holborn doesn’t disappoint. A great, industrial, roughed-up-luxe scheme and some super monochrome flooring.

Monochrome makes its way up to the bathroom too – our en-suite was a fab black & white tile fest. Compact but not claustrophobic, the shower was powerful (a must for any hotel-stay) and the towels were fluffy (also essential). Great-smelling, wall-mounted toiletries (extra Styleopoints for not using horrid tiny plastic bottles) also add to the feel of a upscale but not stuffy stay.

Our bedroom was styled with retro / mid-century touches and the circular wall mirror almost filled the wall. Outside there was a row of super-cool cinema seats and some wall lights which could have been vintage, possibly from a super stylish, communist-era military facility. Awesome.

Local illustrators designed the bespoke wallpaper (scenes from Dickens novels I’ll have you know!) and Central St Martins students created the art for the bedrooms. Local stuff is clever stuff. Larger rooms have space for a kid’s bed or cot and the Hoxton Holborn accepts your furry friend too. I am referring to a dog, not those people that like to dress up as animals (though am sure no-one would bat an eyelid at them either).

Whatever size room you select, you can expect the same ‘Hox Perks’. That’s free wi-fi, an hour’s free international calls, and a light breakfast bag delivered to your door each morning. The fridge comes stocked with fresh milk and free water ( in a recyclable tetra pak – huzzah) and you can fill it yourself with beers, wines or softs sold at totally reasonable prices at the front desk. There is also a full breakfast menu available down in the easy-going, open plan area with an excellent selection of seating (large social refectory-style tables, banquettes, bar and circular settings for two).

 Holborn Hoxton has got good coffee, snacks and late night cocktails down (and the Chicken Shop in the basement is great for interior instagrammers AND for lunch or dinner).

The hotel is really well -located for transport links and relaxed walks around the city. A stone’s throw from Covent Garden, Oxford Street, Bloomsbury and Farringdon, in Holborn, you’re never far from anything. Plenty of bars and restaurants to check out nearby. We went out for the evening to see a band and walked back to the hotel for drinks, where a super-cool crowd had ditched the laptops and newspapers and were now getting all social in the super stylish bar.

The relaxed vibe, central location, excellent service plus destination restaurant and bar, means The Hoxton, Holborn is one of my favourites. Work, rest and play like a (hip) local. Rates from £130. Sign up for special offers.

199-206 High Holborn, London, WC1V 7BD
www.thehoxton.com