So this week I have been lumbered with the task of housesitting while a decorator does his best to cover up the crumbling plaster to Annette’s satisfaction. Not what I wanted as an outcome as I now have to stay at home all week getting up at the crack of dawn to let a decorator in.
The final act was selecting the wall paper from one of the big DIY stores (I’d have shopped online) and I was far from surprised to see the cost had almost returned to that of a William Wallace original.
Of course that would have been hand crafted and expected to last several hundred years, but no so the shoddy stuff on the shelves at Homebase. So I had measured all the walls (length and height £sd) and Annette said there was no need to convert it all to metric as they always have a conversion chart telling you how many rolls of paper you need.
Really?
So there we were with Annette looking through all the £12.99 to £16.99 a roll stuff long after I’ve found the £8.99 a roll and she eventually decides on a simple enough pattern to match up with a small flower on it. I point out that when she want the paper re-painting in a few years time the colour of the flower will dissapear, but she starts loading the trolley.
“Doesn’t look like they have enough paper to me?”
“Do you really think they keep all the paper on the shelves?”
So Annette went off to find an assistant. She returned somewhat sheepisly and said “they have all their stock on the shelves but, can order more in for Wednesday….”
“….and the decorator is comming Tuesday……..I rest my case m’lud…..”
So then Annette started to think about how many rolls we actually needed – there were no conversion charts at all and none of the assistants had the foggiest idea as to how many feet were in a metre or how many rolls were needed for the square footage. While Annette and several assistants tried to locate a smart phone to google a conversion chart, I did a rough calculation in my head of between 8 to 10 rolls.
Eventually, armed with an iphone, a triumphant assistant team leader proudly announced we needed 40 rolls!:) :0 🙂
I pointed out she had made a small error 
There’s just one think maam, you forgot to divide by 5.. you see here it says each roll covers 5 sq metres, so if you divide by 5 you actually need 8 rolls, not 40.
Of course there were only 6 flower rolls that Annette originally wanted but, we found 9 of an acceptable alternative and we were in business.
So I guess the moral is: work out how much paper you need before you go and try to visit a proper decorators store that will have stocks of more than 5 rolls of each pattern. Oh! and take out a bank loan…..
And use the calculator on your phone.