Go All In: How I Designed a Sitting Room Around One Iconic Wallpaper
Some rooms start with a floor plan. Some start with a client's wish list. And some — the most fun ones — start with a wallpaper.
This sitting room in Sleepy Hollow, New York started with Brunschwig and Fils Les Touches, and I committed to it completely. No hedging, no pulling back. Just a full, joyful, verdant green room that makes you smile the moment you walk in.
The Wallpaper That Started It All
Les Touches is one of the great classic prints in American decorating. The scattered brushstroke dot pattern has been a staple of the Brunschwig and Fils collection for decades and for good reason — it is endlessly versatile, undeniably chic, and just enough pattern to be interesting without ever feeling busy. In green on white it has a fresh, garden-like energy that felt exactly right for this space.
The decision to go wall to wall in it was an easy one. This is a sitting room — a secondary space meant for reading, resting, and quiet moments — and giving it a bold wallpapered envelope transforms it from a leftover room into a destination. Guests who stay in this home do not just sleep here. They want to spend time here.
The Ceiling: The Move That Made the Room
If the wallpaper set the tone, the ceiling sealed the deal. Painting it the same rich Kelly green as the dominant color in the pattern was the single most transformative decision in this room.
A painted ceiling does something that a white ceiling simply cannot. It brings the room in. It creates enclosure, warmth and intimacy. It makes the space feel considered from every angle. And when the ceiling color is pulled directly from the wallpaper on the walls, the room feels completely cohesive — like you are sitting inside a beautifully wrapped box.
I love a painted ceiling and I do not use it nearly enough. This room reminded me why I should use it more.
The Visual Comfort Lantern
Hanging from that green ceiling is a brass and glass lantern from Visual Comfort. The scale is exactly right — substantial enough to anchor the ceiling without competing with the wallpaper below. The warm brass reads beautifully against the green and the classic lantern silhouette feels perfectly at home in a room with this much personality. It is the kind of fixture that looks like it has always been there.
The Daybed: Ikea Done Right
The daybed is from Ikea, dressed in Matouk linens. I believe deeply that great design is not about spending the most money on every single piece — it is about spending thoughtfully and knowing where to invest and where to save. The Ikea daybed frame is clean, low to the ground and the perfect canvas for beautiful bedding. Matouk linens in crisp white with a simple green trim detail elevate it completely. Nobody in this room is thinking about where the frame came from. They are thinking about how much they want to climb in.
Fabric on Fabric: The Bolster and the Ottoman
The bolster pillow is covered in the Les Touches fabric, the textile version of the wallpaper. Mixing the same pattern on the walls and on a single soft furnishing is a move I love because it feels intentional without being matchy-matchy. It says this room was designed, not assembled.
The custom upholstered ottoman from Oomph is covered in the Brunschwig and Fils Kashmiri linen print, a bold botanical in the same green family as the Les Touches. The scale of the Kashmiri is much larger and the pattern is more illustrative, which creates the most interesting tension with the delicate dot of the wallpaper. Together they feel like a collected, layered room rather than a showroom.
The coordinating pillows carry both fabrics into the daybed grouping, tying the whole seating area together.
The Antique Chair and the Equestrian Art
The dark antique Windsor style chair in the corner is doing important work. In a room this saturated with green and pattern, a piece with age and patina provides visual relief. It anchors the corner without demanding attention and reminds you that the best rooms always have at least one thing that cannot be bought new.
The framed equestrian print on the wall leans into the classic, slightly English sensibility of Les Touches. Horse and hunt imagery in a room like this feels entirely at home — collected, storied and just a little bit wonderful.
The Serena and Lily Rug
The natural woven rug from Serena and Lily grounds everything beautifully. In a room this full of color and pattern, a neutral, textured floor covering is essential. It provides a visual exhale underfoot and lets every other element breathe.
The Fiddle Leaf Fig
Every room like this needs a plant and this one has a beautiful fiddle leaf fig in the corner by the window. It brings the outside in and adds one more layer of living green to a room already committed to the color. Against the woven shade and the natural rug it feels completely at home.
What This Room Teaches Us
Commitment is a design philosophy. Half measures rarely produce memorable rooms. When you find the right starting point — a wallpaper, a color, a fabric — trust it, build around it, and do not pull back.
This room in Sleepy Hollow is proof that a modest space, a classic print and a willingness to go all in can produce something genuinely joyful.
Photography by Julia D'Agostino. Kelsey Peterson is the principal and founder of Style and Space Interiors, based in Sleepy Hollow, New York.
