Think You Want Grasscloth?

Think you want grasscloth? This natural product is often rife with color variations between strips, or, as seen here, within the same strip. This is called shading or paneling. Or sometimes the material is a lighter color at the edges, causing an unpleasant striped effect. This photo is of a high-end brand called Phillip Jeffries.

Of course, sometimes the material is very homogenous, like the Serena & Lily brand I hung on November 28, 2018. (Look up the post in the archives on the right.) But uniform color like this in grasscloth is pretty rare.

If you are considering using grasscloth, ask me to send you my Info Pack on the product, before you make your purchase.

Minimalizing Color Variations by Hanging in Sequence

Because grasscloth is a natural fiber product, it is known for certain inherent features, namely a pattern that cannot be matched, visible seams, and color variations such as paneling (one strip is a slightly different color from the one next to it), shading (different colors within the same strip), and edges that are lighter in color than the center of the strip. Just do a Search here to see pictures and read stories.

This manufacturer (Thibaut) has taken steps to minimize one of these issues. First, you want to be sure that all your bolts were printed at the same time, from the same run or dye lot (see label). Next, when a whole lot of wallpaper is printed at one time, the ink color can change ever so slightly from the beginning of a run to the end.

So Thibaut lists not only the run number, but the sequence in which the bolts were printed. On the label, this is referred to as “Shade.” The instructions are very specific about cutting and hanging strips of paper in the order they come off the roll, and using consecutive rolls in their proper order.

However, for this 11 bolt living room, I got 8 bolts of Shade series 4 (#’s 1-8), and 3 of Shade series 5 (#’s 7-9 … and what happened to the first six?!). These obviously were not printed in consecutive order! And they were all mixed together in the boxes. Good thing I checked the labels and noted the Shade numbers, before I cut anything up.

Luckily the layout of the room worked so that I was able to keep Shade 4 and Shade 5 on separate walls, so any slight color difference would not be noticeable.