Types Of Wallpaper
There are six main types of wallpaper, and the right one really does depend on the room. The lineup: non-woven paste-the-wall paper, vinyl, peel and stick, traditional paper, grasscloth, and metallic. Demand is high right now, and on the residential side non-woven is widely used.
Below, we start with the materials and what each one is good and bad at, then go room by room. Durability and cleaning come next, then the stucco and melamine question. We finish with how to choose, whether you can hang it yourself, and a short tour of the specialty types worth knowing.
How many types of wallpaper are there?
The wallpaper category breaks into six clear types. Non-woven paste-the-wall wallpaper is the standard for heritage collections like William Morris. Vinyl wallpaper takes the high-moisture rooms (and plenty of rentals), though in some lighting its face looks a little plastic. Peel and stick is the renter's pick, handy for one accent wall. Traditional paper wallpaper still sells in small quantities for specialty work and hand-printed rolls. On the natural-fiber side, grasscloth is the usual pick. Metallic wallpaper is the odd one out, a metal-pigment ink finish over any of the others.
Within those six sit dozens of subtypes, many of them vinyl. Embossed vinyl and expanded vinyl count. So do paper-backed and fabric-backed vinyl. Vinyl-on-non-woven is one more. Pre-pasted and unpasted aren't types at all (nor is paste-the-wall). They just describe how the wallpaper attaches. Some retailers give flock and foil categories of their own. Digital-print sometimes gets one too, but we'd file all of them as print or finish variations on the six.
What are the main types of wallpaper materials?
Non-woven wallpaper is the modern residential standard. It's a blend of synthetic and natural fibers that doesn't swell under the paste, so an eight-foot strip stays eight feet on the wall. You paste the wall, hang the strip dry, and the seams stay put. Our What Is Non-Woven Wallpaper guide goes deeper.
Run a hand over vinyl wallpaper and you can feel the plastic film on top, bonded to a paper or non-woven backing. It shrugs off moisture and gentle scrubbing, which is why kitchens and bathrooms use it (family rooms with kids, too). Type I is the light-duty grade, for homes and light commercial use. Type II is medium-duty commercial (offices, corridors), and Type III is heavy-duty commercial.
With peel and stick wallpaper, the glue is already on the back of the roll. Peel the liner, press the sheet on, done. When the lease ends it comes back down. Stand a foot from the wall, though, and the fine lines look a touch less crisp than on paste-the-wall non-woven, and it won't last as long. Our peel and stick guide covers the rest.
For centuries, traditional paper was simply what wallpaper looked like. It's pure paper, and it swells a little as it soaks up its water-activated paste. Today it's mostly used for hand-printed specialty wallpaper and conservation work, since most residential paper has moved to non-woven (easier to hang).
Grasscloth wallpaper is the one you'll want to touch, natural fibers woven and bonded to a paper or non-woven backing. The fiber might be jute or sisal. Sea grass and paper string are used too. Its color drifts naturally from strip to strip, and it suits a living room or library where a tactile wall beats a printed pattern (bedrooms too). In a cottage it sits well beside natural wood furniture. It costs more than printed wallpaper and doesn't clean well, though, which keeps it out of kitchens and bathrooms.
Metal-pigment inks are what make metallic wallpaper, printed on a non-woven or paper backing. You'll find gold or silver. Copper and bronze are options too. Walk past it in the evening and the pattern seems to move, because the pigment reflects light. It's the formal, luxury end of the category, and it costs more per roll. A slightly crooked seam shows on metallic more than on a matte finish. Dining rooms and entry halls suit it, lit by lamps or candles after dark. Our favorite spot is a powder room.
What are the pros and cons of different wallpaper types?
Non-woven wallpaper is the easiest paste-the-wall format to install, the most stable in size, and the simplest to strip when you redecorate. Against that, it costs a little more per roll than traditional paper, and most non-woven is rated for dry rooms only.
Where the trade-offs really show is a family room with kids. Vinyl wallpaper copes in there, because it handles moisture and a gentle wipe. Grasscloth doesn't. Its texture and natural color variation are the whole reason to buy it, but the seams always show and the surface marks easily, and a family room finds both faults fast. We'd save the grasscloth for a library and give the kids the vinyl.
On a rental the trade flips. Peel and stick wallpaper's short life hardly matters when you're moving out anyway, so we'd take the easy removal. Every format here makes some trade like that.
Which type of wallpaper is best for different rooms or needs?
Living rooms, dining rooms, and bedrooms suit non-woven paste-the-wall wallpaper. Heritage and contemporary patterns both print best on it. A home office is the same story. So is a formal dining room or entry hall, though there we'd often reach for metallic.
Bathrooms split in two. A powder room with no shower stays close to a dry room, so standard non-woven is fine in there if the ventilation is good. The family bathroom upstairs is another matter. With a shower running every morning, we'd switch to vinyl-on-non-woven. Leaving the walls bare is a fair call too. Kitchens get the same vinyl, for the steam and the splashes. Our Can You Wallpaper a Bathroom guide has the rest.
Renting is simpler, because peel and stick wallpaper comes off cleanly on moving day if it went up correctly. The paint underneath survives.
Is wallpaper durable and washable?
Most modern non-woven wallpaper lasts ten to fifteen years if you treat it well. Put vinyl in a steamy bathroom and it goes longer still. The plastic face doesn't mind the wet or the wiping. Peel and stick is the short-lived one. Three to seven years is typical, and the first sign it's done is usually the top of a strip curling away near the ceiling.
How washable it is depends on the format, and you usually find out when something lands on the wall at toddler height. Vinyl is the only one here that takes a damp cloth with a mild soap solution. Non-woven gets the damp cloth alone, no soap and no scrub sponge, while grasscloth gets a dry duster and traditional paper no water at all. Read the manufacturer's care guide first, and see our How to Clean Wallpaper guide for each format's routine.
Will wallpaper stick to stucco or melamine?
Stucco surfaces are too textured for direct wallpaper installation. The paper bridges the bumps instead of lying flat, and the bubbles and creases show through the print. There is a fix, and it isn't quick. A skim coat of joint compound goes on first. Sand it smooth and prime it, and after that a stucco wall hangs like any other. Count on a full day or two.
Melamine has the opposite problem. It's the laminate on most flat-pack furniture and some kitchen cabinets, too smooth and non-porous for paste to grip, and standard wallpaper paste lets the paper peel off within weeks. Sand it first to take the shine off, and prime with a melamine-specific primer. The paste matters as well: a heavy-duty wallpaper paste rated for non-porous surfaces, not the standard tub. Peel and stick wallpaper will sometimes hold on melamine without sanding, but we wouldn't bet a wardrobe door on it.
How do I choose the right wallpaper for my room?
Start with room function. How wet does the room get, and how much traffic does it see? Dry rooms point to non-woven, wet ones to vinyl-on-non-woven. Rentals and short-term projects are peel and stick.
The rest is easier in one room, so take a small spare bedroom in an old cottage, with a pine dresser and a faded blue rug. The only free wall is a narrow stretch between the window and the door.
Style follows the furniture and the architecture. Cottage and country rooms take cottagecore florals and woodland patterns, and next to that dresser a woodland design looks at home. (A heritage or traditional room points to patterns like William Morris or chinoiserie. A modern one wants geometric or abstract designs, or watercolor.)
Scale is where small rooms go wrong. Large-scale patterns need large walls to read well, and that strip by the door isn't one, so we'd go small-scale. Most rooms sit in the middle and suit a medium-scale pattern, decorative from across the room and detailed up close.
Then there's that rug. The wallpaper's main colors should already be in the room, in an upholstered chair or the rug. Lamps and art count too. Here, that means a woodland print carrying the rug's blue. That's what makes wallpaper look integrated rather than imposed, not like a sample stuck onto an unrelated room. Order full-roll samples and tape them up for several days before you commit.
Can I install wallpaper myself?
Most non-woven and peel and stick wallpaper is installable by a careful DIY beginner. Of the two, we'd start on non-woven wallpaper, because a pasted strip still slides while you nudge it into line. Peel and stick grabs the wall on contact, and a crooked panel is hard to lift. Our How to Hang Wallpaper guide covers the paste-the-wall procedure in full.
Traditional paper and grasscloth are harder. Paper expands when wet, so every strip gets booked, folded onto itself for a few minutes, before it goes up. Grasscloth has visible seams and natural color variation, and matching the strips takes care. Vinyl wallpaper is heavier and stiffer than non-woven, which is a lot to handle alone on a long strip. With any of these, we'd hire a pro unless you've hung wallpaper before.
Specialty wallpaper types worth knowing
Mural wallpaper comes as a set of panels that combine into a single large image. Matching them at install is everything, since one panel off line breaks the image. It makes a strong feature wall in a dining room or entry hall. Bedrooms suit one too. Custom digital print wallpaper goes further, putting any image at wall scale for commercial spaces and personal projects.
Victorians loved flock wallpaper, and it came back in the 1970s. Its raised fiber pattern was originally wool and is usually synthetic now, giving a velvet-like surface. Foil wallpaper has a reflective metal foil face, not metallic's pigment ink. Anaglypta wallpaper is heavily embossed and meant to be painted after install, and it hides the imperfections in an older home's walls. All of these add character, at a higher price than standard non-woven and with a fussier install. We'd put traditional paper in the same company. It keeps the look of hand-printed, conservation-grade work, but it expands when wet and needs just as careful a hand.
Types of wallpaper questions
Which wallpaper type is best?
Non-woven paste-the-wall wallpaper is the best general-purpose format for residential interiors. We'd hang it in almost any dry room. In a bathroom with a shower we'd switch to vinyl-on-non-woven, so the "best" type depends on the room.
Will wallpaper stick to stucco?
Not directly. Stucco's bumps are too rough for wallpaper to bond cleanly. A skim coat of joint compound, sanded and primed, fixes it, at the cost of one to two days.
Will wallpaper stick to melamine?
Standard wallpaper paste will not bond to melamine because the surface is too smooth and non-porous. On an old cabinet door, sand first and prime with a melamine-specific primer. The paste needs to be a heavy-duty one rated for non-porous walls. Peel and stick sometimes skips the prep, though it lets go more easily.
How many types of wallpaper do we have?
The wallpaper category breaks into six main types: non-woven, vinyl, peel and stick, traditional paper, grasscloth, and metallic. Count every subtype and you're into the dozens, from embossed vinyl to anaglypta, all still inside the basic six.
What is the most popular wallpaper type?
Non-woven paste-the-wall wallpaper is widely used in residential interiors and is the usual choice for paste-the-wall papers today. Why? Balance, mostly. The print is good and the install is easy. The William Morris Designs heritage collection is non-woven.
How long does wallpaper last?
Non-woven wallpaper lasts ten to fifteen years if treated well. In a wet room vinyl wallpaper can manage fifteen to twenty, thanks to its moisture resistance. Peel and stick is the sprinter at three to seven. Hand-painted murals and grasscloth can last longer if the wall behind them stays sound.
Where can I buy wallpaper online?
The William Morris Wallpaper collection at williammorriswallpaper.co carries the full Morris heritage range and a broad selection of contemporary patterns across botanical, chinoiserie, geometric, watercolor, and metallic categories. Wherever you buy, tape a sample up for several days, then decide.
