Articles

In-depth guides and practical articles on designer wallcoverings.

• How grasscloth is made: from harvested reed to a paper-backed bolt Grasscloth is one of the few wallcoverings still largely made by hand, and the process explains almost everything about how it behaves on a wall.
• Sisal, arrowroot, and jute: telling the natural fibers apart by weave and hand The natural-texture family covers several distinct plants, and each has a coarseness, color, and character worth knowing before it goes on a wall.
• Cork wallcovering and the nine-year bark harvest behind it Cork is stripped from a living tree that regrows its bark on a long cycle, which is why it is treated as a renewable material and why its texture is what it is.
• Why natural-fiber panels are meant to show their seams With grasscloth and its relatives, the joins between strips are visible by design, and pretending otherwise sets up disappointment.
• Color variation and dye lots: hanging grasscloth so the shading reads as intentional Batch-to-batch and strip-to-strip color shift is inherent to natural fiber. Managing it at the point of order and on the wall is what keeps it looking deliberate.
• Paste, paperbacking, and keeping adhesive off the face of a natural weave The single most common way to ruin a grasscloth install is adhesive on the face, and the material's own construction dictates how to avoid it.