Wallpaper for the Hall in Goa

The best wall is usually a long, uninterrupted internal wall — behind the main sofa, along the passage to the bedrooms, or at the dining end of a combined hall. Walls broken up by doors and windows show only fragments of a pattern and are better painted.

In a flat where the hall runs into the dining area, wallpaper can mark the dining zone on its own without a partition. In a traditional sala, a paper in a heritage-style damask or a soft botanical can sit comfortably beside lime-washed walls and wooden furniture.

Bright Goan daylight flattens pale, low-contrast papers and intensifies strong colours. In a sunny hall, mid-tones and textured papers hold up; in a darker inward-facing hall, a lighter paper with a little sheen bounces light around. Always look at a sample on the actual wall at different times of day — the hall in the morning and the hall under evening lamps are different rooms.

Large halls suit large repeats: a pattern repeat of 50 centimetres or more, a mural, or a bold stripe running floor to ceiling to emphasise height. Small repeats work better in a passage or a narrow entrance.

A printed mural is made to the exact size of the wall, so it can wrap around a doorway or stop neatly at a cornice. In Goan homes palm groves, paddy fields, river scenes and tropical botanicals are popular and look natural in a room that already opens onto green. Keep the furniture in front of a mural low so the image is not hidden behind the sofa back.

A hall can carry one panelled wall and one papered wall, but not much more before it becomes busy. If the TV wall is panelled, keep the wallpaper on a wall at right angles to it, and pick a paper whose colours echo the panel finish. Bring curtain and sofa samples to the wallpaper choice; a paper that looks perfect on its own can fight a patterned curtain beside it.