Lots of Defects in Today’s Paper

There is a lot of “fuzzy stuff” along the edges of the seams.
But most concerning is that the seagulls do not match from one strip to the other.

This photo shows you why. Look at the gull next to my finger, and compare it with the gull by my pencil. The gull at the top of the roll is fatter – it has more white wing area. Obviously this run of wallpaper got trimmed “on the bias,” meaning that the rolls were not cut straight, but at a slight diagonal … sort of like a very long trapezoid. This results in the motifs being cut at an angle, with some wider than others. That means that the motifs are not going to match up perfectly at the seams.

In addition, one double roll bolt had abraded areas, as if something at the factory swept across the material and scraped off some of the ink. I cut off and discarded the worst of this. Luckily we had a little extra paper.

More fuzzy stuff. This shows on the surface. And it prevents the seams from meeting properly. I was able to remove some of it with a sanding block. But some of it remained, and affected the look of the finished job. Luckily, not extremely noticeable.

Anderson Prints

I’ve hung this paper before and not had these problems. I hope the issue is unique to this run, and subsequent runs will be back to being perfect.

I usually have the client order enough wallpaper that we can work around issues like this. Also, because of the layout of the room, and the fact that there is only one motif that has to be matched across a seam, and it’s relatively small, I’m going to be able to finish the room with it all looking O.K.

Manufacturer’s Trimming Error

Top photo shows the left edges of two strips of wallpaper, with a piece of white paper in between, so you can see the distinction between them.

As you can see, the one on the left has very tiny bits of the pattern motif along its left edge.

The one on the right has wider bits of the pattern.

The right edges of these strips had the matching halves of the pattern motifs, also in disparate sized chunks.

What this means is, when the left edge of one of these strips is hung on the wall and butted up against the right edge of the next strip, the joined motifs will not match up perfectly. They will be either too wide or too narrow – which, with a rhythmic pattern like this, would be very noticeable.

In fact, the manufacturer’s trimming machine must have been a tad out of whack, because the motifs on the edges of these bolts were 1/32″ – 1/64″ too wide – and, as you can see in the second photo, when placed next to each other, the resulting motifs were wider than the others. Some “small” thing like this will catch the eye.

In addition, on one bolt (the one on the far left in the top photo), the pattern started out very narrow at the top, but, as the 27′ long bolt unfurled, the pattern got wider. In other words, the trimming machine must have been cattywhompus, and thus the material got cut on a bias.

I really like the York brand, and I am a big fan of their SureStrip line. But today I was disappointed.