Adding Grass Cloth To Your Bathroom? Here's Why You Should Consider Vinyl
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Sometimes, choosing the right material for your bathroom walls can be a toss-up. You want to choose a color that works with your decor, but you also prefer a material that's at least somewhat easy to install and won't give you problems such as peeling, bubbling, or other issues. But when it comes to wall covering, you have two choices. You can paint the walls or cover them with wallpaper designs. Many would argue that wallpaper is better than painting in more ways than one. The good thing is that there are so many wallpaper options to choose from these days, a popular one being grass cloth.
Grass cloth wall covering is made from hand-woven natural fibers and grass. It offers a clean, textured feel that works well in modern or minimalistic decor. However, if you're going to go with it, even as an accent wall idea in the bathroom, it's best that you actually opt for vinyl grass cloth instead. The reason is that vinyl grass cloth is water-resistant and is visually a spot-on substitute for the real thing, providing a more practical solution for bathroom installation. Vinyl grass cloth is also less expensive, which means that you can save money while getting the same high-end aesthetic.
Reasons to choose vinyl over authentic grass cloth
One common mistake everyone makes when buying wallpaper is assuming that it will be feasible for a bathroom. In the case of grass cloth, it simply isn't. Grass cloth doesn't tolerate moisture particularly well. Also, the visible seams on its joints may be prone to splitting and lifting under humid conditions. Bathrooms are typically the smallest spaces in a home, and they often have irregular dimensions, which can make installing grass cloth particularly difficult in these rooms — the material can be hard to bend and rather stiff to work with. Its inflexibility can cause challenges in terms of properly fitting the textile around molding and angled areas.
By comparison, vinyl grass cloth wallpaper doesn't require the delicate care that natural grass cloth does — making it a more resilient substitute. In addition to vinyl having more flexibility and durability than real grass cloth, it's also more affordable, which is helpful for remodeling projects with budget constraints. Authentic grass cloth wallpaper is typically priced higher than vinyl and can range from $162 to $415 for a 36-inch by 24-foot roll. Meanwhile, a vinyl option available on Amazon, Tempaper Neutral Faux Grasscloth Removable Peel and Stick Wallpaper, costs around $40 per roll.