East wall beforeSame wall covered with soft tan, lightly textured wallcovering . This material is an embossed vinyl replicating the look of a woven grasscloth . The texture and color doesn’t overpower , but is just enough to give the feeling of warm and cozy . Plain paint can’t do that. West and north walls before. Finished – but the color washed out for some reason … it’s really a peaceful tan .Close-up of the woven textured look . Manufacturer is Thibaut . Random means that this material has no pattern match at the seams . Because no wallpaper is cut off in order to match the pattern , there is very little waste , and you often get an extra strip out of each roll / bolt of paper. Like most textured wallpapers , be they made of natural materials like grasscloth or sisal , or a faux like this of embossed vinyl , it’s suggested that you reverse hang every other strip – in other words, Strip #1 is hung right side up, and Strip #2 is hung upside down, then Strip #3 is right side up, etc. This helps minimize shading and paneling between strips , by ensuring that the same edge of wallpaper is hung against itself . Do a Search here to read previous posts and get a clearer idea of what I’m talking about! This home is in the Heights neighborhood of Houston . installer
Window wall before. Due to the logistics of plotting and hanging grasscloth, this one wall took me six hours. More on that in a separate post.Finished wall with drapes replaced. The drapes compliment the slight sheen of the grasscloth material. How elegant ! Below the windows.Below the windows .Rounded bull-nosed edges on this entry arch . The edges are always tricky to wallpaper . Arch done. East corner. I stripe the wall with dark paint to prevent the white wall primer from showing in case of tiny gaps at the seams . The southwest corner had an odd angle in it, probably due to the powder room or stairs or maybe A/C ducts on the other side of the wall. The light hits that one angled wall differently. This photo also nicely shows the fine texture of the grass material, and the subtle sheen . Also note that the seams in grasscloth are always visible . So good installer will take care to plot so the panels are placed in the most pleasing manner – in this case, down the center of the wall to the left. This does eat up a little (or a lot) of extra paper – the rolled up scraps you see are leftovers from this process. They can’t be used anywhere else, so will be thrown away . Planning all this is another reason to have the installer figure how many rolls / bolts are needed. Purchasing based on square footage would result in an unbalanced panel layout . Northwest corner. Grasscloth often has shading or paneling ( color differences ) between strips. This particular grasscloth was amazingly homogeneous in color, and I was very pleased. In fact, over this entry to the home office was the only place where there was any noticeable color difference at all. (also visible in previous photo) Unfortunately, I don’t know the brand . But I suspect that a lot of grasscloth and other such natural materials are made by the same manufacturer – just sold under different brand names . The home is in the West University area of central Houston .
Home office work station niche primed and ready for wallpaper. Done. Grasscloth comes 36″ wide, and this niche was about 39″ wide, so it required two strips, both trimmed down to 19.5″ wide. Generally, design-wise, you try not to put a seam down the center. But in this case there was no other viable option. This seam was practically invisible.In the photo, the seam is a little to the right of center. You always see the seams in grasscloth, and this is about as perfect as it gets. The homeowner, who is an interior designer, did a superb job of finding a grasscloth that’s murky blue hue coordinates perfectly with the color of the cabinetry. Unfortunately, I don’t know the manufacturer of this material. Close-up showing the texture.Twin bookshelves flanking the fireplace wall in the family room, primed and ready for wallpaper. Grasscloth has been installed. It’s nice to not have the shelves in place – so much easier to get that paper up!Bookshelf niche on the right.Bookshelf niche on the left. Note the slight shading and color variations . These are typical of natural products like grasscloth, and are not considered a defect. As the manufacturers say, these variations are ” part of the inherent beauty of these natural materials .” Shelves will go in these niches and decorative items will obscure these slight imperfections. TV room bookshelf niche. Yes, t’was I who swiped the smiley face and the horse head into the primer. 🙂Done. This niche is a tad less than 36″ wide, so only one strip was needed, hence, no seams. Any color variations you see are due to shadows. Close-up.Closer-up. Scissors for perspective. These days, people are loving the subtle texture and warmth of grasscloth , paperweaves and other natural materials . The manufacturer of the grasscloth in both the family room and TV room is Schumacher . The home is in the far west area of Katy , a suburb west of Houston.
Here I am trying to find and understand the pattern match on this very difficult to see faux reptile pattern.All this is more confusing because the little box toward the left on the bottom of the manufacturer’s spec sheet says this is a drop / offset match. It is not – it’s a straight match . The instructions also say it’s 64cm (25 in). That’s not true, either. It’s more like 12.5″ The pattern also repeats itself once horizontally across the strip. Found the match!Problem is, when I followed the manufacturer’s instructions and hung the material as a matched pattern, I got paneling . This means that the material is darker along the left edge than along the right. Therefor, when you place one strip next to another, you see an abrupt color change , as shown in the photo. The pattern may match, but this color variation is pretty unattractive.So I followed what’s pretty standard protocol for textured and natural materials (such as grasscloth , paperweaves , cork , etc. and even this vinyl .) I took that strip off the wall, repasted it, and hung it again – but this time upside down. By doing this, you’re hanging the left side of one strip against the left side of another strip. Because it’s meeting up with itself, there is no or minimal color difference. Hard to explain, and if I could figure out how to draw some arrows or diagrams …. well, I can’t, so you’ll just have to try to follow along. Bottom line – you hang one strip right-side-up and the next strip upside-down . Keep track of which is the top on each of your wallpaper strips, and mark on the wall (in pencil) which direction each strip should be hung. Made by Super Fresco Easy , called Crocodile . Really nice material, and affordable.
You can expect color variations in grasscloth (and other natural material) wallcoverings. These products are made from authentic natural elements, like grass and reeds and hemp and other such materials.
Because each individual blade of grass absorbs dye differently, and because different fields of grass, or even different handfulls grabbed by the worker women, are of differing thicknesses and porosities and thus take the dye differently, there will be differences in the color of these reeds as they are sewn onto their paper backing.
So, you often (usually) end up with an effect we call “paneling” or “shading,” which are differences in color between strips of wallpaper (see third photo), or even within the same strip – such as being darker at the top but becoming lighter at a lower point on the wall.
To minimize this, many manufacturers are labeling their material in the sequence that it came out of the factory. The idea is that, if the strips are hung in the order they came off the dye machine, the strips that are the most similar in color will be next to each other on the walls.
The problem with this particular job is – the vendor didn’t send bolts that came in any sort of correct sequence at all. See second photo.
Luckily, this room is chopped up enough that I can plot the layout so that on most walls, only strips off the same bolt, or closely within the same sequence, will be touching each other.
Unfortunately, even strips within the same sequence can fall prey to paneling. In the last photo, the narrow strip on the far right is from sequence 14-9. The two strips to the left of it are from bolt 14-10. And the two strips to the left of those (next to the door frame) are from bolt 14-11.
As you can see, 14-9 and 14-10 are very close in color / shade. But there is a big difference between the shades in 14-10 and 14-11.
Note that this is not considered a defect or error. These color variations are considered part of the “inherent beauty of these natural materials.”
This very popular wallpaper pattern is by Cole & Son, and is called “Woods.” I have hung it in the black-on-white many times (do a Search here – upper right), but this is the first time to do it in this softer colorway. The décor in this home is all soft and muted greys and taupes, with a lot of natural materials (wood, stone) tossed in, so this pattern and color are a perfect compliment.
The wallpaper material is called non-woven, which has a high fiberglass content. This means it doesn’t expand when wet with paste, so there is no booking time – meaning you can hang each strip as soon as it is pasted. In fact, you can paste the wall and dry-hang the strips, if you choose. Another advantage of non-wovens is that they are dimensionally-stable, and do not expand when wet with paste, like paper wallpapers do. Very handy when measuring and laying out the room.
A disadvantage of non-wovens is that they are prone to staining and blushing. This is where the paper looks like it is wet, but it never dries and disappears. Certain pastes (880, 234) are known to cause staining on these materials, as well as too much pressure while installing, or wetting the paper with water.
This laundry room is in a newish home in Pearland, a suburb in south Houston.
Whoops! Someone at the factory got fingerprints on the wallpaper. 😦 Luckily, this was in the first foot or so of material, so I was able to cut it off and discard it without losing too much.
In the second photo, look just to the right of the pencil and you will see a band of darker colored material. Maybe the rollers at the factory pressed a little harder in this area – who knows?
This is part of the manufacturing process, and it’s part and parcel with natural materials like this silk. It is not considered a defect.
This silk was 36″ wide, and the strips I needed were 29″ wide. So I was able to trim off this darker band and use the part that was more homogeneous in color.
If I had needed the full 36″ widths, there would have been faint darker horizontal bands running the full height of each strip. Again, not a defect; just the nature of the beast.
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