Wallpaper woes…

We believe that most of the walls (and most of the ceilings) in this house were wallpapered originally.  This original paper has been covered by numerous additional layers of paper, paint, and, in some cases, wall texture (plaster) and paint.  The conundrum for us as we work through rooms how to finish these walls.

In the rooms we’ve finished so far, we’ve done a little bit of everything from covering the walls with bead board to stripping all the wallpaper off down to bare walls and painting.  In the dining room, we decided we wanted to put up wallpaper.  I know, we’re crazy.  First, this room had anywhere from 2 to 4 layers of wallpaper to remove.  The wallpaper had also been covered in a plaster texture and then painted.  It took us hours to remove everything down to bare walls.  Then, the walls all had to be patched and repaired due to the numerous cracks in the plaster.  Why the hell would we go through all of that just to cover it all again with wallpaper?  Most people who have removed wallpaper vow to NEVER put up wallpaper.  Most people who want to stay married vow to NEVER put up wallpaper with their spouse.

We have removed lots of wallpaper.  Not just in this house, but in previous houses as well.  Layers and layers and layers of it.  One of the rooms in our last house had 6 layers in one room.  Fun times!  We have also installed wallpaper.  In our first house, we wallpapered an entire 25 X 15 foot ceiling!  While I don’t envision us installing a ton of wallpaper, I had a vision for the dining room.  As we know, when one of us has a vision, there’s no stopping us.

You see, I can’t really explain this without sounding like a lunatic, but every time we design a room, it’s as if the room “speaks” to us.  It’s weird and hard to explain, but it’s almost as if the room tells us what color it wants to be.  In our last house, there were times we would decide on the color, then after stripping wallpaper we would get to the original paint color and it was the color we had chosen.  It got to be a little creepy.

So, for the dining room, I saw red and gold.  And I saw wallpaper.  I wanted the room to feel truly Victorian.  I wanted it to feel formal.  I wanted it to feel like it may have felt 100 years ago.  So, the search for wallpaper began.  In November.  It’s now January and we still search.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to locate wallpaper?  Nearly impossible.  Almost no one has wallpaper books anymore, so you have to look on the internet.  Do you know how difficult it is to discern colors in the internet?  I mean, we are talking about 400 square feet of RED…it better be the right red.  Not too orange, not too pink, not too purple, not too dark, not too light….  Red is truly the Goldilocks of color.

In November, we started our search.  We found a couple we liked, ordered samples, and decided on a wallpaper.  Not just any wallpaper, but the Perfect Wallpaper.  It was the perfect color red, the pattern was a good size, the gold wasn’t too gold, it even looked old….perfect.

The perfect wallpaper

We ordered the wallpaper, chose a paint color for the trim and ceiling that would go with the paper, and all was well.

Until…..

We got a call that the wallpaper was discontinued.

Crap.

So, I found another supplier.  Ordered the wallpaper.  Waited.  A few days later, a refund for the amount of the wallpaper appeared in our account.  No email from the supplier, no phone call….just a refund.  The same thing happened with the third supplier I ordered from.  Turns out that even though there were numerous web sites that said they had the paper, none of them actually did.

So, we searched again.  We called interior design places…..none of them had wallpaper.  We went to Lowes and looked at their limited supply of wallpaper books.  We went to a Sherwin Williams store in another town and searched through their books.  Finally, we found a few more papers we liked…..all were discontinued.

I actually considered stenciling our own wallpaper.  **Chuckle**  Yeah, that would be a nightmare.  So, we are back to the drawing board.  I have found a couple possibilities, but we are waiting to see a sample before we decide.  I have learned to make sure the paper is available before ordering a sample.

Needless to say, I don’t think we’ll be doing wallpaper in any other rooms.  Hopefully there isn’t another room that “tells” us it needs wallpaper.