Wallpaper Pattern Repeats Explained: A Guide to Pattern Matching

When choosing wallpaper, you’ll often see terms such as pattern repeat, straight match and half-drop match in the specifications. These explain how and where the design repeats to enable you to line up the wallpaper correctly on the wall so that the pattern flows seamlessly. It is also important to know so you can correctly work out how many rolls of wallpaper you need.

If this feels overwhelming do not worry, on every product page you will find a calculator that works this out for you. However if your walls are a bit more complicated or like me you are a bit of a technical know how nerd; in this guide I explain wallpaper pattern repeats and the different match types, so you can understand the symbols and instructions, calculate quantities to avoid over or under ordering.

What is a pattern repeat

A pattern repeat is the size of the vertical pattern before it repeats itself. You would see this in the product description or on the side of the roll and it is a number in cm. A small pattern might be as little as 5cm and a large pattern might be 64cm so it also gives us a clue to the scale of your pattern.

What is a pattern match?

A pattern match indicates how each subsequent drop aligns on the wall to match the pattern correctly. You would see something like Straight match or Off-Set match. Symbols would look like this:

So adding this information together might give us something like this: the pattern repeat is 64cm and is a straight match.

Half Drop Match

A half drop or off-set (means the same thing) would mean lining each wallpaper strip up by dropping the pattern by half of the pattern repeat. For example if the pattern repeat is 64cm, to hang off set you would match the pattern every 32cm. This gives a less repetitive pattern on the wall by spreading out the repeating design.

Example of a half drop match:

Straight Match

A straight match is hung by matching each subsequent drop exactly next to the last.

Free Match

Is shown as a 0cm pattern repeat. It means there is no pattern to match or the pattern can be hung without the pattern matching to give a more organic effect. No pattern match is seen on wallpapers that have no main pattern like a fabric effect design.

How to work out how many rolls of wallpaper you need

Measure the height and width of your wall. If more than one wall is conjoined add all the widths together. If more than 1 wall is in a room but they are not conjoined it is recommended to work them out separately to allow for best alignment of the pattern on each wall. Unless there is a free match then work out as 1.

Add the pattern repeat on to the height i.e. wall is 2.5m and repeat is 53cm = 3.03m

If the roll is 10m you now know that you will get 3 drops off each roll because 3.03 goes into 10 3x times.

Now see how many times the width of the pattern goes into the width of the wall. Lets’ say our roll is 53cm wide and the wall is 4m you need 8 drops of wallpaper.

Divide 8 by 3 = 3 rolls of wallpaper

Or just use our handy calculator on each product page!

Common mistakes to avoid

1- Not taking note of these details may mean you do not have enough wallpaper.

2- Calculating based on a total M2 this will not be accurate.

3- Cutting each strip without knowing the pattern match and repeat.

Pro tips

1- Ignore things like standard size windows, air con units etc. These are classed as wastage

2- Extra needs to be ordered if you are wrapping the wallpaper into window reveals. This is when there is no timber frame.

We are here to help if you have a tricker room than a standard feature wall. Give us a call to discuss your project and nut out the details.