Vinyl Faux Grasscloth in Guest Bathroom

Before. Walls primed and ready for wallpaper .

Vanity area done. This blue , brown , and metallic gold material has the warm look and texture of real grasscloth, but is much more water- and stain-resistant and consistent in color . It also has a pattern that can be matched , so the seams are much less visible than with real grass . Note that some of the lines you’re seeing in the photo are cast by the light fixture .

Going around these arched windows took a while!

Toilet wall without lights off.

With lights on, you see the true colors more accurately. Note the light fixture casting vertical stripes on the wall .

Like many thick, textured vinyl products, the edges curl back just a teeny bit, due to how the material is trimmed at the factory. Believe it or not, run your finger over this seam and you’ll feel that it’s perfectly flat. In fact, this look is typical with real grasscloth, because the edges tend to fray up a bit. From two feet away, you don’t notice any of this.

This material mimics the look and texture of real grasscloth .

Another wall, along the shower . One nice thing about grasscloth is that, since you don’t need to match pattern motifs, you don’t have to paper walls in sequence or order. We were a little tight on material on this job, so I hung my full length walls first, then went back and hung the shorter walls. This helped me plan usage – how many strips needed and how many strips I could get out of each roll / bolt of paper .

Made by York , one of my favorite manufacturers.

Large Arched Niche With Rounded / Bull Nosed Edges

This is a very large art niche in the entry I blogged about yesterday. The edges are not just rounded, but the top is arched, as well. Wallpaper might turn the rounded edges alright, but it will not handle the arch and wrap under it, too – at least, not without a whole lot of cuts and splices. Best to trim at the edge and leave the underside of the arch painted.

It’s a whole lot harder than it sounds, because, with the paper hanging over the edge, it’s impossible to see where you are trimming. I have a little gadget (not shown) that is made from the same plastic edging that is used on the drywall to form these rounded corners. It has a couple of notches cut into it at various spots. I place a pencil in a notch and run the gadget around the rounded corner, and that gives me a nice, straight line to use as a guide for trimming.

Personally, I’ll be glad when these bull-nosed edges fall out of style. In the meantime, I am happy I have my little gadget in my toolbox.

Trimming Grasscloth Inside a Curved Arch / Working Clean

Digital Image

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post, here is how I trimmed the stiff, rectangular grasscloth to fit the arched top of the bookcase back. You see slits in the excess paper, which we call “relief cuts,” that allow enough ease that the paper can be tucked against the wall, and then trimmed with my razor knife.

The blue stuff is a trick I used to keep paste off the painted areas around the bookcase. This is nice because it saves having to wipe the paste off. It is also important, because with grasscloth, you can’t get any paste or water on the surface of the paper, because it will leave a stain. So even wiping paste off the woodwork with a damp cloth, which is commonly done with most wallpapers, could cause water from the cloth to get onto the grasscloth and stain the natural material.

The blue stuff is a special 2″ wide thin plastic tape, invented and sold by a colleague who is also a member of the Wallcovering Installers Association (WIA). The tape has other uses, like to keep paste off the flat paint on ceilings, and when overlapping and splicing (double cutting) strips of wallpaper.