Disappointing Defects in Schumacher Sisal Wallpaper

The homeowners ordered the brown colorway. So why did they send us both brown and blue??

Look closely and you’ll see that both the blue and the black lines are different thicknesses on each of these three bolts.

Close-up showing different widths of ink.

Even before I unrolled any paper, my suspicions were aroused by this … This cut was made by a hand-held scissors, not a factory machine. That tells me that perhaps an installer sliced off a few feet and then returned the paper, for whatever reason. Now I have no idea how many feet are on this bolt, what run number it is, or why the material was returned.
In addition, the five double rolls of sisal ( grasscloth ) material had no labels, no marks, no run numbers, or other typical information.

Feather Bloom is a very popular wallpaper pattern by high-end manufacturer Schumacher. This family paid several thousand dollars just for the material to cover one accent wall in their home office. Such a disappointment that I could not get their room papered today.

Schumacher is not among my favorite brands, and this is a good example of why. LOTS of printing defects, just about every time I work with it.

But this takes it to a whole new level, because obviously there was no quality control at the factory, no oversight to ensure all rolls were from the same run, nor even the same colorway.

Folks, stay away from Schumacher! As I like to say, for every high-end brand making a cool pattern in a material that’s expensive and difficult to work with, there is someone else making a knock-off that is lower priced and better quality.

Two Bolts, Two Runs, Four Walls – Engineering to the Rescue

Re my previous post … The area to be papered was small, but the whole job was complicated because the grasscloth arrived in two different runs. Run refers to paper that was all dyed / printed at the same time, with the same batch of ink. Different runs will be slightly different colors. The second photo exaggerates that color difference a bit, but still, it was pretty noticeable. That’s why you need to be sure that all your wallpaper is from the same run.

Somehow, Quality Control fell through on several levels, and I ended up with four walls to cover, a scant two bolts of paper, and two different color shades.

If two strips of wallpaper from two different runs are places side-by-side, you will see a big difference in color, which is what we call paneling (do a Search here for more pics and info). But your eye won’t notice a slight color difference if the two runs are kept on separate walls.

So my challenge today was to figure out how many strips I needed of what lengths, to cover which walls, without mixing either of the runs on the same wall, all the while bearing in mind the length of each bolt of paper and how many strips I could get out of each.

It took a bit of measuring, plotting, pre-planning, and engineering – which, to be honest, I actually enjoy – a lot. 🙂 In the end, I was able to cover all four walls without either of the two runs touching one another on the same wall. Once the room was done, you would never have known the paper had come in two different shades. The overall look was very homogeneous.