Wallpaper Woes.

Years ago, our first home had some wallpaper in the nursery and the main floor 1/2 bath. We loved both and kept them in place. And then wallpapered our kitchen from corner to corner, with a sweet little border at the top. It was a tiny kitchen but so warm and welcoming with our "homey" wallpaper. 

Our next few homes were just painted walls but then we decided to add wallpaper to our 4th house. We started in the kitchen, then added a border in the living room and the dining room. We wallpapered our master bedroom with a border at the top. And for our two kids bedrooms, we wallpapered half way up and added a wood chair rail. Loved those spaces. Our 5th house, we did just borders and it was fun to change them out as our kids grew. When we decided to lease out our house to a sweet little family, we took down the borders and repainted all 3 levels so they could move into a fresh and neutral home. They were very appreciative of the new paint.

A long ramble to get to my story I've called "Wallpaper Woes." 

Though we are going for a true English Cottage look in our new home, we have chosen not to put wallpaper anywhere, except for our main floor half bathroom. This room, like all the rooms on our main level, has 9 foot ceilings, so the room feels very tall but is small. To combat this, we decided we would put wallpaper on the upper half, and then we were going to install a chair rail and some wainscotting. It took forever but I finally found a pattern I love and off we went to the store to order it. I measured, remeasured and measured again. And then took those measurements into the store. I asked to order more once they did their calculations but they insisted that I would have more than enough with extra left over. I trusted but am quickly learning in this building/decorating process that my gut feeling will always win. So I let them order it. And guess what. Part way through the install process, I could see we would be short. Off to the store once again. They were happy to order me more but now the sale was over and so not only would I be charged more but now the shipping charges would be double. Hell no! Not on my watch ....

I had to wait a few days for the store manager as he was away but finally he got back to me and placed the order at the same sale price, without any additional shipping charges. And the best part was he also agreed his staff should have ordered extra. So now I was back in business. But a new problem emerged. As I hung the first strip of the new order. it looked darker. At first we thought "it's just the water" and hoped once it dried, it would be the same shade. But no, it dried and for days I kept checking to see if the tone would lighten but it didn't. It was super disappointing and frustrating.

Contacted the store manager who confirmed that they should have tried to match the lot number with the second order but no one thought of that ..... yes, I promise I won't order wallpaper from this large company again. But for now, I had to get this fixed. I contacted the store manager but he had no solution, so I contacted the area manager who was shocked that we had this experience. I have to send pictures tomorrow to show them what the wallpaper looks like and my hope is that they will reimburse me so we can start all over again. I haven't checked yet to see if the pattern we picked is still available but have chosen another one (picture above) just in case it's not. It's super close to the original but a smaller pattern. Fingers crossed that the area manager comes back with what I want and we can start fresh with enough wallpaper to cover the walls as we envisioned. Can't wait for this whole ordeal, our "Wallpaper Woes" to be be all over with. Soon, very soon ....