Decoratetoday.com; For All Your Decorating Needs
Written: Jul 25 '03
|
| Full Review |
TV shows such as Trading Spaces, While You Were Out, Design on A Dime, Decorating Cents, etc. have a lot of explaining to do. What else could be responsible for the fact that a guy can leave his perfectly normal home in the morning, only to return in the evening to a laundry list of home improvement projects and a spouse babbling nonsensically about the pros and cons of decorating the toilet in toile?
The invasion of the decorating shows has made a big difference in how we view our collective homesteads. It’s no longer enough for a home to be simply comfortable; it must have “style, “interest,” “color sense” and “dimension.” Further, if you haven’t recreated the interior of the Biltmore Estate on a pauper’s budget, you simply are not trying hard enough.
Not to worry, my fellow designers. American Blinds and Wallpaper has you covered. The site found at decoratetoday.com is host to an eye-popping assortment of items for all of your design needs. Of course there are blinds and wallpaper, but the site is also home to a vast assortment of paint, lighting, custom framed art, shutters, area rugs, bedding, home accents, draperies and curtains. Many of these items are offered at 25% to 85% below retail, with a Lifetime Lowest Price Guarantee. Include a 100% satisfaction guarantee, free UPS shipping (more on that later) and a free blinds catalog, and you are well on your way to a princely palace that won’t set you back a king’s ransom.
When my spouse and I decided to purchase our new home, we knew that we wanted to wallpaper the bathrooms. We started the journey in the traditional way—slogging through those heavy, cumbersome wallpaper books at the local decorating shop. It was nice to be able to see the papers in person, but the heft of those books was enough to strain the back of a weightlifter.
Curiously, my local decorating shop also boasts “below retail” prices. I wonder whether this is something that all wallpaper galleries do to make us think we are getting a better price than we actually are. In order to effectively comparison shop, I think you need to forget about the “below retail” ads and simply compare the total price you’d pay for the same wallpaper at another source.
After checking out wallpaper designs locally, my spouse and I discovered that American Blinds and Wallpaper prices were not actually 25% to 85% below other decorating stores, but they were certainly competitive and they gave us access to a high volume of wallpaper books that we hadn’t found elsewhere in any one place. Our toile was bound to be found in one of them.
Navigating decoratetoday.com is pretty straightforward. For example, you can search for wallpaper by:
keyword description
design and color
book name or number
pattern name or number, or
style, designer or manufacturer.”
A simple keyword search of “blue toile” provided us with 60 wallpaper and border choices. The results page displays an at-a-glance thumbnail of each pattern. You can quickly navigate the display pages to eliminate patterns that you know you’re not interested in. However, if you see a style that looks promising, you just click the image for pricing, product details, and larger images.
The product detail page provides the book number, pattern number, and the ability to see a larger view. In addition, you’re able to view all patterns that are available from the same wallpaper book. This is helpful if you like the style of a pattern, but wonder if the design comes in another color or similar style.
Additionally, the detail page gives much needed information about the paper itself: pattern repeat (very important for matching strips), whether it’s strippable, washable, and,or prepasted. Also provided are estimated ship date (usually 1 -2 days) and a wallpaper calculator (so you know how much paper to purchase). If you really want to get creative—and who doesn’t—the site graciously displays a few coordinating border and paper patterns.
One noteworthy point to make is that pricing/packaging in the wallpaper world differs significantly from the way the rest of world operates. I do not consider myself a mathematical purist (though, no doubt many of you are); however I assumed that if a roll of wallpaper is priced as a single roll, then the package would contain a (drumroll, please) single roll. Au contraire, mon frère.
In the wacky world of wallpaper, manufacturers package in double rolls, but price in single rolls. At the decoratetoday.com site, you enter the quantity of single rolls you need. If you enter an odd number, (i.e. three single rolls) you’ll get an error message saying you need to enter an even number (i.e., two double rolls). What this means is you may only need three single rolls of blue-and-white patterned paper, but you’ll have to fork over a little more money for two double rolls (otherwise known as four single rolls).
Assuming you are able to get past that little sticking point, the folks at American Blinds and Wallpaper have an excellent tool called the “Scrapbook.” Here’s how it works. My spouse spent hours browsing through wallpaper and border images from the comfort of home. Each time that she came upon an image that she felt would work in the room, she would price it and then add it to the scrapbook. She narrowed the selections down to a dozen patterns. The Scrapbook listed each image and details on a single page, making it a breeze to contrast and compare styles and prices.
Once the selection process was complete, we ordered a sample which arrived in a little under two weeks. The sample was generous enough for us to make a final determination about color and quality, and we were ready to order our paper.
During the ordering process, we discovered that although UPS shipping is free, there is a Processing Fee that we found no mention of in the General Help & Policy links prior to ordering. Only until you have actually advanced to Step 2 of the ordering process do you discover that there is a “one time processing fee of $5.00 for your entire order regardless of the quantities of any product you order. This fee covers the cost of actually processing your order with the manufacturer.” I don’t mind that American Blinds and Wallpaper requires this fee, but I do feel it is misleading that this fee is not disclosed on the Shipping or General Help pages so that customers know about the fee prior to finalizing the ordering process. Other than that, the only other fee is a 6% sales tax to orders sent to Michigan.
Conclusion
Docoratetoday.com is the place on the Internet for your home decorating needs. Now if I could only wean the spouse from Trading Spaces, While You Were Out, Design on A Dime, Decorating Cents, etc., perhaps I wouldn’t need Decoratetoday.com as much.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
vemartin
|
 - Top 50 |
|
Member: Vincent
Location: Aurora, IL
Reviews written: 1369
Trusted by: 549 members
About Me:
...A Great Empire cannot be Conquered from Without until it first Destroys itself From Within...
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.