Why do a Four Point Check?
I had a job once, a third floor billiard room in a very expensive home that presented an interesting situation. This room took up the entire third floor of this house and as I recall about 50 single rolls of wallcovering. The high end handprint going on the walls was six color screening. This means it took six individual screens and six individual processing rounds to produce.
One of the reasons I tell my students to always do their four point check (quantity, quality, pattern number and lot number) before you set up is to prevent them from making the mistake I made here that put me in more trouble than I would have been in otherwise. (The four point check is shown in detail on Tape four of the ASPA Course.)
The first day I removed all the pictures and painting from the walls and scrapped and sanded all the walls and new walls. Then I primed with wallcovering undercoat. Next I set up all my drop cloths, paste table, ladders, etc. By now it's quitting time so I head for home looking forward to putting up my feet!
The next day I came back and I opened the wallcovering boxes to start inspecting, engineering and cutting. When I did my four point check I noticed a shading at one edge. Upon further inspection I determined the problem was the ink was thicker on one side of the sheet of wallcovering than on the other. This resulted in more of the background showing on the side with the thicker ink because the thinner ink spread more while printing. In fact the ink was so thick (on the thick side) that when I looked at it with a magnifying glass one could actually see wrinkling in the ink after it dried.
(By the way, one of the most useful tools you can keep in your work vehicle is a magnifying glass. You will be amazed at the uses you will find for this simple tool.)
This paper was a 28 inch wide product which repeated across the sheet every seven inches. What I discovered was if I trimmed off the first inch repeat from the thick side and used only a 21 inch width all the shading went away. I was able to do this because most of the thick ink was concentrated in the last few inches of the width of the wallcovering.
After producing a demonstration to show the customer and interior designer how the trim job made the shading magically disappear we all realized what all this "magic" was going to cost.
It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure it would take 25% more paper (that wasn't there) to complete the job since I was throwing one cross repeat out of four in the trash. The interior designer and I got on the phone to the manufacturer and after much haggling they agreed to send sixteen more single rolls. This wallcovering, of course, would be a different dye lot and would require much of my time to blend and corner match with the original material. The seams would be harder to align with the ones under them (from knee wall to side wall) because the new lot didn't have, according to an inspection by the manufacturer, the "thick ink problem". In other words, I could hang the second lot in full 28" widths.
You should have heard the hue and cry when I said I would not charge them anything for the time I had already wasted helping solve the problem, or for the extra time needed for corner matching the two different lots BUT I would charge them my standard untrimmed handprint price for the sixteen extra rolls.
They reasoned that the room was still the same size as it had been before so why should I charge more. Now, IF I had done my four point check before I sanded, primed and set up I could have simply said good bye and left but they knew I had already invested a lot of time and was in a weak bargaining position.
And that ain't all!
I also explained that I "thought" this would solve the problem from I could see from my demo boards but such may not be the case on the actual wall. There was much more moaning and groaning and I finally agreed to hang one wall and allow an inspection to determine whether to go or stop.
I hung the stuff. It looked okay, not great but okay, so we agreed to proceed.
We still had not agreed on my pay for the extra 16 single rolls so I decided to give them a live demonstration of the fact that I might not be as smart as I thought I was but I wasn't as dumb as they thought I was!
When all the original wallcovering was hung I asked for a check for all the prep and all of the paper I had hung so far. There was no problem getting the check as they were very pleased with how it was looking. The room was about 3/4 done with a few of the knee walls and dormers partly done and stopped in the corners so I had a place to break the old lot with the new lot.
They had told me the husband's sister was to be married next month and they were hosting the wedding reception in their home so they were very anxious for me to return and finish the job when those new sixteen rolls came in.
By the time they called to have the second order of wallcovering installed, their check had been deposited and had cleared my bank. Now the ball was back in my court!
I simply asked the homeowner this question, "If you were asked to do this new sixteen roll box of wallcovering for FREE would you?"
We agreed on a price and the job was finished.
For years I kept a sample of this wallcovering to show my students at the school. It was a lesson for me and I hope one that they learned through my painful experience. The lesson is this: The easiest way to correct the problems in the manufacturing, handling, warehousing and shipping process is to prevent them from hanging up the hanging process! Always but always, do your four point check...quantity, quality, pattern and lot.
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