A Couple Of Issues With Installing Grasscloth
Well, I still didn’t finish the grasscloth wallpaper in the bedroom suite foyer even though I worked on it for six hours yesterday. Ugh. I made some really good progress, but I knew going into this that the foyer was going to be challenging. Even though it’s a relatively small space, it has three doorways that I have to work around, two of which had the trim headers that needed to be removed, and one that presented a bit of a unique situation.
Those doorways with the trim headers really slowed me down. I thought would never get the one off of the bathroom (future storage closet) door. This trim has been up there for about ten years, and it was installed back when I used to use construction adhesive on every piece of trim I installed. I was quickly reminded why I don’t use construction adhesive anymore. It’s overkill and almost never needed, but if you have to remove the trim, it wrecks the drywall.
And then if you want to reuse the trim, you’re left with this mess that you have to clean up before it can be reused.
But I did finally get that trim off. I got the drywall cleaned up a bit, and cleaned up the back of that trim. Then I wallpapered that wall and reinstalled the trim. I’ll show y’all how all of that turned out when I’m finished with all of the wallpaper and get the whole area cleaned up.
The biggest challenge I faced yesterday was installing the grasscloth wallpaper around the closet doorway. I wasn’t really sure how this would work, and even still, this remains a “figure it out as you go” kind of thing. But in order to be able to wrap the grasscloth around the side jamb of the doorway and cover the whole jamb, that left me with nothing to cover the top jamb in the right corner.
So it looks like that top jamb will have to be covered with a completely separate piece of wallpaper. We’ll see if I can pull this off and make it look like one continuous piece of wallpaper instead of two separate pieces.
Once that piece was up, I loved the overall look of it, but there were two issues that I didn’t like. First, I thought that I could just cut the edge of the wallpaper on the closet side of the door jamb with a very clean cut and leave it at that. But even with a really clean cut, it just looks unfinished to me.
Here’s a look at it from the closet side. Ignore those rogue splotches of dark teal paint on the trim. Those need to be touched up with the light blue. But as far as the grasscloth goes, I’m not loving how this looks with it just dead ending right there.
So I think I’m going to add a tiny piece of trim right on the edge to give it a clean finish. I’ll paint this piece dark teal to blend in with the wallpaper, and I’ll put it all the way around the door jamb on the wallpapered areas.
I think I’ll be much happier with it once that trim is up. It’ll give it a much more finished look, but of course, that’s just one more thing added to my list that needs to be done now. At least it’s not a huge project, but I thought I was all finished with trim, so this does feel like I’m going backwards a bit.
But the bigger issue is that once I got that piece up and stood back to look at it, I saw that this piece was clearly darker than the one next to it. It was the very first piece of a new roll of wallpaper, and this roll is clearly darker than the previous roll.
And it’s not just the lighting because it’s darker from every point of view.
I was disappointed to see that. I don’t really want a darker color framing the doorway. And I’m not sure if taking it down and replacing it would even help because, as I said, it was the first piece of a brand new roll of wallpaper. I have this roll and then one other roll left, so I think I might actually end up with three extra pieces of wallpaper. But there’s no guarantee that replacing it with another piece will make a difference since my options are to replace it with a piece from this same roll, which will probably be the same color, or replacing it with a piece from that final roll, and there are no guarantees if that will solve anything. For all I know, that final roll may be just as dark.
So I decided to take my chance and see if I could use a wet rag to rub some of the dye off of this piece. As you can see here, the wet rag definitely removed some of the dye.
I just did a small area to test. You can see it below. It’s that square that looks darker because it’s wet.
But once it was dry, it actually did look a bit lighter.
It wasn’t a perfect match, but it was lighter. The problem is that I didn’t take enough of the color off right at the seam, so the seam appears darker.
I tried it one more time to take even more of the dye off, and that seemed to work really well.
That seam is still darker, though, so I’m not sure if it’s actually going to work. But I am going to do the rest of it and see if I can get it to look good. I don’t need it to be perfect. The beauty of grasscloth is its imperfections. But I want to at least give this a try before gambling with a completely new piece, which will be a gamble since it’s possible that a new piece will present this same exact problem.
So anyway, progress continues, but there have been some road bumps along the way. Overall, I’m so pleased with how it’s turning out, though. I can’t wait to get these last few pieces up (I think I have four more pieces to hang), and then get the whole area cleaned up and cleared out so that we can see the finished grasscloth in all its glory. I won’t have any time to work on it today, so I’ll pick this back up tomorrow.
I’m really hoping that I can work through these last couple of challenges and get these last few details worked out so that I can be done with this project by the end of tomorrow and be ready to move on to the next project. The headboard fabric and hallway bench fabric should be here today, so I’ll be champing at the bit to move on to other projects once I have that fabric in hand.
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Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.
Praying you get that wiped off to your liking. I mever would have thought of that! It’s looking very nice! Keep looking ahead, Kristi! One of the reasons I love your blog, you keep it real! And in real time! None of this “everything is perfect” that goes on these days. The green on the dresser is turning out to be one of my favorite. Did you share the color? Shipping this time of year is always delayed and the weather is not helping. Praying everything clicks for you today
It looks like you have a solution for the darker areas!
I think I would wait until you have it all up before I would take any more color out of the wallpaper, because you may have to do more, or wish more was back there due to the color of the rest of the wallpaper.
It is looking so pretty!
I’m sitting here thinking maybe you should try a little paint to blend the two pieces and then you come up with simply wiping with water. Hah. Genius.
Hi Kristi: It’s looking good. That’s one of the benefits of taking your time! Just a thought, when you cut the wallpaper for the next piece over the closet doorway, can you cut the section over the door opening longer so that you can wrap it instead of piecing it on the underside opening? You are making great progress!
1. The grass cloth is looking absolutely incredible. You are doing an exacting job with a challenging material, and it could not look better.
2. Your conclusion that you need a small trim piece where the grass cloth ends at the closet. An architect friend of mine told me that when you have two materials coming in contact, you always need a small trim piece for transition. Think baseboard and wood flooring + base shoe. Your instinct is spot on.
3. As another poster suggested, use a piece of grass cloth on the top of the closet door that will wrap around the outer wall and upper jamb.
4. Wait until you have the entire job done before blotting off any more of the grass cloth color. You will want to see the whole before doing that touch up. Your idea to blot it instead of paint it to dull the color is genius.
You are almost done with the very hardest part of this huge job! When it is finished, you can do such fun stuff!
It’s looking great, Kristi! That was a clever idea to use a wet cloth to remove some of the dye from that darker piece. Will you do the inside of the doorframe too, or just leave it? The tiny molding will also make a nice edge for the interior of the doorway. You are making progress, and I am still amazed at what you’ve been able to do! Enjoy your day with your mother; what a priceless treasure to still have her with you.
I’ll just leave it the original color on the inside of the door frame. If that’s darker, it’ll just look like a difference in the lighting since it’s on a different plane.
You mention that this darker piece is the first one off a new roll – just like the darker one that you first put up in your bedroom. Is it possible that the first piece off the next roll will be similarly dark? And not only do you have to alternate direction of the grasscloth when installing, but you also have to be cognizant of alternating between rolls somehow?
Hmmm…I’m not sure. I’ll have to see about that.
Rather than adding trim to the doorway, have you considered wrapping the door frame completely so that the grasscloth carries slightly into the closet? It seems like it would only be a few inches but might bridge the two spaces more smoothly from a visual perspective.
I don’t know that I could do that since the chair rail molding terminates on the door jamb and doesn’t carry around to the closet wall.
Hi – you are making fabulous progress in spite of all the challenges this project has presented you with. All I can say – I admire your perseverance. One thing I have learned – I will never wallpaper with Grasscloth – as much as I like the look of it – the inconsistencies in dye lots would drive me crazy added to the less than smooth joins. Cannot wait to see the end result- keep forging ahead!
Have you tried the wet rag approach to the very first piece you put up? That might lighten that middle square enough to blend in with the grasscloth on the sides.
All together, it looks beautiful.Lauranette
I haven’t, and I probably won’t. That first piece bothers me a lot less than the piece next to the closet doorway.