MDC Interior Solutions: The Commercial Wallcovering House Worth Knowing

Fifty years of contract specification, a hand in writing the industry's sustainability standard, and now available in the UK.

Most wallcovering houses design for the eye and then work out whether the product can survive contact with people. MDC has always done it the other way round.

The company has spent fifty years supplying commercial interiors in the United States, where a wallcovering has to hold up in a hotel corridor, satisfy a fire strategy and pass a sustainability audit before anyone discusses how it looks. That order of priorities produces a particular kind of product, and it is one that private clients increasingly want too.

01Who MDC are

Headquartered in Glendale Heights, Illinois, MDC Interior Solutions has grown over five decades from a wallcovering supplier into a broad interior finishes company. It works through a network of more than eighty sales representatives across the United States, and the training culture behind that team is a large part of how the company is regarded in American commercial design.

The portfolio now covers considerably more than paper on walls: decorative wallcoverings, acoustic solutions, digital imaging, architectural wall and ceiling panels, wall protection, window shades, dry erase and collaborative surfaces, and wall art. MDC was among the first in the industry to take digital printing seriously, and among the first to bring bespoke, branded environments into commercial interiors as a standard offer rather than a special project.

02Built for contract, which is exactly why it works at home

There is a habit in residential design of treating commercial specification as the unglamorous end of the trade. It is a mistake, and the reason is simple: the performance requirements that a hotel imposes are the same ones a family house actually needs, and almost never gets.

A commercial wallcovering has to tolerate being wiped down, resist scuffing at shoulder height, hold its colour under artificial light for years, and carry documentation proving all of it. Put that product in a hallway with children and a dog and it behaves accordingly.

The quality most residential wallpaper lacks is not beauty. It is the ability to survive being lived with.

This is the argument for MDC in a private house, and it is particularly strong in the rooms where conventional wallpaper fails: hallways, stairwells, kitchens, boot rooms, children's bedrooms.

03Type I, Type II and what the numbers mean

American commercial wallcoverings are graded by weight and durability, and you will see the classification on every specification sheet. It is worth understanding, because it tells you more about a product than any description does.

Type II is where most of the interesting product sits, and it is the grade to ask for on any residential area that takes real traffic. The weight is doing the work: a heavier vinyl resists impact and cleaning in a way a paper-backed decorative wallpaper cannot.

Fire classification is separate from durability and varies by territory and by application. Our guide to fire safety regulations sets out what applies where, and we can supply certification for any reference before you order.

04Inside the portfolio

The Studio 198 collection runs to around 169 MDC references, spanning several distinct families.

• Type II vinyls. The commercial core, in textures from deep embossed grids through to fine herringbone weaves. Designs such as Calvin, Downing and Dimension Trellis.
• Textiles and fabric wallcoverings. Woven surfaces with the depth of real cloth and a specification behind them.
• Natural fibres. Grasscloth, sisal, jute, cork and paperweave, covered in more detail below.
• Handmade and specialty effects. Embossed metallics, embellished surfaces and handcrafted finishes for the wall that is meant to be looked at.
• Acoustic solutions. MDC's Zintra range and related products address sound rather than just surface, which places them alongside the thinking in our piece on upholstered walls.
• Digital and bespoke. Custom printed wallcoverings produced to a project's own artwork.

05Natural Resources

The Natural Resources collection is the one that most often surprises people who think of MDC as a vinyl house. It is built from rapidly renewable materials including sisal, paperweave, jute, cork, burlap and linen. The fibres are sustainably harvested, coloured with vegetable-based dyes, and handwoven using techniques that have not changed in centuries.

Around forty-eight references sit in this family, including Sisalana and Avatar Linen. If you are looking at grasscloth, this is a considerably more rigorous route to it than most, because it comes with the sustainability documentation and the commercial testing that natural fibre wallcoverings usually lack.

One point to set with clients: natural fibre wallcoverings show panel joints and vary in colour between and within rolls. That is inherent to a handwoven material rather than a fault, and it is part of why the surface looks the way it does.

06Sustainability, and a hand in writing the rules

Plenty of manufacturers publish sustainability claims. Rather fewer helped write the standard those claims are measured against.

MDC is a long-standing member of the Wallcovering Association and spearheaded the development of NSF 342, the leading standard for evaluating and certifying the sustainability of wallcoverings across the whole product life cycle. The company has also participated in more than 35,000 registered LEED projects.

For anyone specifying to a sustainability framework, or simply fielding the question from a client, that is a materially stronger position than a general statement about recycled content. Ask us for the documentation on any reference and we will provide it.

07How it is sold

MDC references are sold both by the roll and by the linear metre, depending on the product, and a good proportion of the collection is priced per metre. Some of the wide-width vinyls carry a minimum order, commonly fifteen metres, so check the specification before you build a budget.

The calculation differs between the two, and getting it wrong is the most common ordering error we see. Our guide on how much wallpaper you need covers both methods, including the section on metre-sold wallcoverings.

Two further points. Widths vary across the portfolio, and a difference of a few centimetres changes your number of drops on a wall, so confirm the width for your specific reference. And order the whole job in one batch, since colour can shift between production runs on both vinyl and natural fibre.

08Where it belongs

Strong candidates. Hallways, staircases and landings, where conventional wallpaper takes a beating. Kitchens and utility areas, where cleanability matters. Children's rooms. Any hospitality, office or healthcare project needing Type II performance with documentation. Rooms where acoustics are part of the brief.

Think carefully. If you want the particular hand of a hand-printed English paper or a silk, that is a different product and a different conversation. MDC's strength is engineered performance with genuine design quality on top, not the artisanal fragility that some schemes call for. Our silk wallpaper guide covers the other end of that spectrum.

Frequently asked questions