Some brands make you work to find their philosophy. Caselio hands you theirs in the name.
It is a small piece of invented sunshine: casa, the Spanish for house, joined to helios, the Greek for sun. The house of the sun. You could hardly ask for a clearer statement of intent, and everything the brand makes runs on optimism, brightness and colour. It is difficult to browse a Caselio collection without feeling your mood lift a degree or two.
It is a French house, part of the same Texdecor group as the rarefied Casamance and the atmospheric Casadeco, and the three are studies in contrast. Where its most luxurious cousin whispers and slows the pace, Caselio simply beams. Its watchwords, printed all over its own literature, are creativity, spontaneity and colour, and it wears them lightly: look at Bold Line in burgundy and blue, the denim checkerboard of Checks, or Gisèle in bottle green.
"Casa, house in Spanish, and Helios, sun in Greek. Caselio is, quite literally, the house of the sun."
Bold Line, Blue Bordeaux
Checks, Bleu Denim
Gisèle, Vert Bouteille
XXL Lines, Vert Amande
Joy, Democratically
What sets Caselio apart, though, is not simply that it is cheerful but that it is generous. This is colour for everyone. The prices are refreshingly reasonable, the papers are famously easy to hang, and the range is designed to suit every room in the house and every member of the family, from a grown-up botanical in the sitting room to a sunny print in the kitchen to genuinely delightful designs for a child's bedroom. There are coordinating fabrics, sweeping panoramic murals and even stickers, all of them inviting you to make something of your own.
The Blue Shades book is the quiet proof of it, a whole range built on one colour family and priced so that a bedroom can be changed on a whim: Ikara is an inked stripe, Floria a pale leaf trail, May a soft foliage print, and Delora from Elea the gentlest of green textures.
Ikara, Bleu Nuit
Floria, Bleu
May, Bleu Vert
Delora, Vert Amande
"This is not a solemn forever-purchase. It is an invitation to enjoy your walls."
The effect of all this is rather liberating. A Caselio wall is not a once-in-a-decade investment to be agonised over; it is an easy, affordable, joyful gesture, the decorating equivalent of throwing open the shutters. It positively encourages you to be brave, and to change your mind as often as you like.
Let a Little Sunshine In
The timing could hardly be better. After years of careful neutrals, homes are rediscovering colour and optimism, what the forecasters cheerfully call dopamine decor, and few brands deliver that lift as easily, or as affordably, as this one.
Because it asks so little of your budget and your nerve, Caselio is the brand to be playful with. Try the bolder colour you have always secretly wanted in a kitchen or a cloakroom. Give a child the pattern they will adore, safe in the knowledge that it can be changed without heartache when they outgrow it. Kalea and Gisèle in Jaune are the warm, easy way in, Uni Mat the olive that makes a corner feel considered, and Delicate Petals the reminder that a sunny house can do a dark room beautifully too. And because the fabrics coordinate with the papers, the cheer can carry onto a blind or a cushion with no effort at all.
Kalea, Bleu Doux
Gisèle, Jaune
Uni Mat, Vert Jaune
Delicate Petals, Noir
The panoramics are where it gets really generous. Forest of Pinea, a pen drawn pine wood from Moonlight 3, will turn a dull hallway or a plain bedroom wall into somewhere that makes you smile on the way in, for a fraction of what a mural usually costs.
Forest of Pinea, Noir et Blanc
As ever, colour reads most truthfully on your own wall in your own light, so start with a sample. There is something disarming about a brand whose entire reason for being is to let a little sunshine in. Caselio does exactly what its name promises, and asks remarkably little of you in return.
