The experience we recently had with Wallpapering by Vickie was so poor I felt compelled to write my first on line review ever in the hopes someone else does not go through this experience.
In mid August 2017, I met with Vickie to go over wallpaper in two rooms. The powder room was a hand painted Scalamandre print, and I provided her both a sample of the paper and the product details. She informed me at that meeting that she had experience with the paper and it would be no issue to install it. The paper is expensive ($2100 for the room). She provided me a quote to install the paper for $975. This is the 4th home where I’ve used this paper, and I know the criticality of a good install. So while her price was high, I was willing to pay more for quality work. The installation charge for the second room, and office, was also high at $1450. Again, since we were using a high-end Thibaut grass cloth paper ($1146 for the room), I was willing to accept the price. She shared verbally and in writing that her work was ‘guaranteed’.
When she first came to skim coat the two rooms, she left such a mess on our floors, molding, baseboards, sink, toilet and even furniture, my husband spent 2 hours cleaning up behind her.
When she came to install the paper, she began with the office. At first sight, she appeared to have installed fine, but upon closer inspection, she patched in a corner of the room, rounded some corners with the paper (vs. creating edges at the corner to avoid future tears) and did not use a straight edge to cut the other corners leaving a jagged, uneven edge.
The powder room was the second install. After putting up the first sheet, she expressed concerns with the nature of the paper- hand painted so the pattern was slightly varied and a narrow area in which to trim to match the prints. I shared with her that she was aware of the paper well in advance so should not have been surprised by it. She then shared that she had only installed this brand one other time and it allowed for more flexibility due to the pattern and color. We agreed she would try one more sheet and see how it looked. Those first two sheets looks fine, so she planned to return the next day to finish the job when my husband would be at home.
She completed the install the next day. She was paid and left, but there were seams coming apart, so she returned to fix them. After she left again, my husband sent pictures of the install. I returned that night and found a completely unacceptable installation. I immediately sent her a text that we needed to review the install.
First thing the next morning I asked her not to cash her final payment. She did not respond to that request and had cashed her check immediately after leaving our home. The day, I sent her a detailed email with pictures outlining the issues- lack of pattern match, torn paper in the corner, stains on the paper from glue or other, torn seams, and jagged cuts in the panels at the seams. She tried to defend the install blaming the paper and the walls. When she finally came back to the house two weeks later, she again tried to say the install was fine, the walls were not square, and she could ‘fix’ the hand painted wallpaper by using actual paint on it. She also shared that she had patched the grass cloth to ‘save me money’ yet never discussed it with me during the installation. She left indicating she would look to purchase the powder room paper as well as the grass cloth to address the office. She was provided all of the necessary information she requested (wallpaper quote, brand details, costs and the name of my designer). A week later, after numerous texts and emails, she’s been unresponsive in providing any kind of status on the corrections she was to provide or follow up.
Obviously, her guarantee is only as good as her perception of the installation and not her client’s satisfaction. I had a number of other wallpaper hangers come to review the work and all of said it was installed incorrectly. The total financial loss on this project was nearly $6000 between her installation charges and the cost of the ruined paper.
I would encourage anyone considering use of this company to take immediate pause. She has falsely advertised her guarantee, overstates her experience in use of specific papers, and is extremely high priced for the final work delivered.
