Printed wallpaper offers unlimited pattern, color, and scale — from hand-painted murals to archival prints — with a smooth, uniform surface that reads as more formal. Grasscloth offers texture, natural variation, and a more relaxed, tactile feel, but comes with tradeoffs.
Grasscloth is more humidity-tolerant and forgiving of imperfect walls (its texture hides minor substrate flaws), but it also stains more easily, cannot be spot-cleaned like vinyl-coated paper, and shows seams more visibly since bolts vary in color.
Printed paper is generally easier to maintain and better suited to high-pattern, formal rooms, while natural fiber suits transitional and coastal-luxury interiors where texture matters more than pattern precision.
Many of our Lowcountry clients use both: grasscloth in bedrooms and living spaces, and printed or hand-painted murals as a formal statement in entries and dining rooms.