Ya gotta know.....grass cloth "will" water stain. So if you know it's gonna get wet....then.....don't do it.

We have grandkids who splash like ducks in the powder room. Grasscloth would be a disaster for us.

What about a textured vinyl grasscloth look-alike? Sounds scary, but there might be a nice one out there.

any wall treatment must be done well or it will get messed up from the water etc.. but, "amysrq" has a good idea there are nice commercial grade grasscloth look-alikes.
or you can do a painting tecnique that looks like grasscloth,paint the base,use a dry large brush with a contrasting color and streak it top to bottom, then add another color go horizontal with the dry brush, each color you must dry then add new color,building up the streaks looks 3D and similiar to grasscloth.good luck

"What about a textured vinyl grasscloth look-alike? Sounds scary, but there might be a nice one out there."

There are some nice ones out there.
Admittedly, they're hard to find, but they do exist.

Phillip Jeffries makes some.

Here is a link that might be useful: Vinyl grasscloth, arrowroot, etc.

I have a vinyl grasscloth look-alike in my well-used powder room. I have 3 4 year old grandsons---not long past toilet training, either -- who spend lots of time in Baba's house. It holds up beautifully, washes easily and it doesn't matter if anyone splashes.

As a matter of fact, I'm a big proponent of wallpaper, especially in powder rooms. They're generally small rooms and paint usually can't take the repeated washings, splashings and rubbing against the walls that happen.

Baba Helene

This is veering off topic but a testament to vinyl wallpaper. The hallways in my complex were papered with vinyl in 1965 and the building spent 16 years as a rental before turning condo. Most of the hallways still have the vinyl and we scrubbed our building with Scotchbrite pads and detergent. Imagine what a 45 year old paint job would look like.

Okay, sign me up. I was getting ready to paint the powder room. Maybe I need vinyl...

Pal, is there a way for us mere mortals to get the PJ papers?

Phillip Jeffries is to-the-trade, but many design centers (if you have one nearby), allow consumers to come in, work with someone onsite, and purchas that way.

There is also a place called LA Design Concepts that sells to the trade products directly to the consumer for 20% above designer net cost (which is lower than normal markup I guess---I don't work that way). I have not used them, and I imagine you need to have yardage and overages and everything figured out yourself.

Good thought. We can walk in to the Boston Design Center and work with someone hourly. I've actually shopped there without a designer.

Off to LADC website now...

Here is a link that might be useful: uh oh...

Wow thanks everyone for the responses. I was all set on just wallpaper first, then the grasscloth. I had seen those vinyl wall papers from PJ but thought they might be over the moon $$. But I keep telling DH its a small amount right!

I'm off to follow Amy through the LADC website...uh oh is right. Thanks again.

Blubird-any pics of your powder room?

Here's a picture of the powder room. I love the (vinyl) grasscloth paper so much I've used it in both my downstairs powder room and my upstairs center hall bath. I'm actually thinking of using it in a different color for my master bath.

The powder room is so small I had to stand outside to take a picture of it!

And here's a picture of the same "paper" used in my larger bathroom.

Helene

Helene-that is very beautiful-is it gray? Would you mind sharing the name and manufacturer?

Thank you very much for posting the pics-it does look awesome.

Ugh! I had written a reply and then attempted to post it and got one of those 'maintenance' messages, so I'll try to reconstruct it.

The coloring of the 'paper' is actually a mid-tone avocado-ish. It's not quite a grasscloth texture - rather it has more of a horizontal texture and the coloring itself has a crackle look to it with a lighter green. The grasscloth look in this coloration was more of a solid. I actually realized while writing the reply that I'm sitting in my office which does have a grasscloth textured vinyl wallpaper in a natural color.

One big advantage of the vinyl over real grasscloth is that there are no little hanging strings or grass pieces for little kids to pull off (who me?). And if a wall is properly prepared for wallpaper, wallpaper is a breeze to take care of. The powder room paper is up about 7 years - the upstairs bath paper is up about 5 - both look brand new. I doubt if painted walls would have looked very good by now, especially in the powder room with the 4 year olds.

The wallpaper is from Warner Wallcoverings - the pattern number is 98-4427, but I think that changes with the books. If I recall correctly, it's one of the World of Texture Books and each book carries a different set of colorations. It's still current as I've seen it recently.

Here's a picture of the office grasscloth. I think it's from the same series as the wallpaper above.

and here's a closeup of the texture:

Helene