Saddness.

It was all going so well. Michelle had done all the preliminary work of stripping layers of old wallpaper, priming once with latex-based primer, then again (dang!) with one that was oil-based. She painted the trim and ceiling of this tiny powder room with multiple coats. She picked the perfect pattern, it had arrived, and we were on to the last step.

The work station was all set up. We'd cut out the sheets and lined them up, had the plastic bins ready for dipping and the waiting period while the adhesive got tacky, all the tools in place. The paper looked amazing, and typical of Michelle, worked perfectly with her whole first floor. You can see in these backgrounds how well it agreed with the living and dining rooms, even though it was totally different. (I love, love those curtains below).

We put the first sheet up though, and as we were smoothing it out and positioning it gently, with our fingertips, the ink started to rub off. As we continued to carefully flatten it out, more would rub off. I decided maybe we'd gotten it too wet? even though my Mom and the directions said you could dunk the whole sheet. So we peeled the first one off and tried another. This time I just sort of pulled it through the water, letting the printed side stay mostly dry. I was being very careful with it, and used a super soft sponge to try and smooth it down in place. It worked better, but every time we touched it, it started to go again.

When we called the store to ask, they said the paper was defective. We peeled off the second sheet and brought it down there, along with the supplies we'd used, and it was confirmed. We didn't do anything wrong, it was the paper. BUMMER. Ordering more would not solve the problem. DRAG. So we spent a little while, found a good book that had about 4 or 5 options, and took it home to get a better look.

Obviously the sample below was creased, this was after it came down and was folded up to take to the store. But that crease had nothing to do with why the ink was coming off the edges, and is in fact a good representation of what was happening randomly around the whole sheet. That white at the top came off when we put the straight edge to to it to trim it along the wall and ceiling. Just from touching it.

Anyway, I'm bummed I don't have a newly papered powder room to share, but here's a tip: order samples. I will never get wallpaper without a sample first (I probably wouldn't anyway, but I'd be driven by the visual match more than the quality, which I now know to test ahead of hanging). Hopefully in a couple weeks we'll have the new stuff and I can revisit this project with some different results. Didn't work out this time, but totally fun and do-able.