Wall Decal Review- SomethinUrby.com

by Adrian How

I guess HowsHouse.com sure is gaining popularity. Recently, I was asked by somethinurby.com – a local online store retailing wall decals – to write a review about their offering. They were nice enough to allow me to select a decal of my choice and ship it to me as a sample for my review. By allowing me to make my choice of decal, it eliminated any form of vendor bias.

I selected the ‘Winter Sakura‘ decal from the Urby One Earth category (they have several logical categories in which their decal offerings have been grouped into e.g. Urby Kids for children themed decals, Urby Urbanites designed for the urban dweller etc). The shipment arrived two days later. I have to say, the website is both easy to use and performing the transaction was a piece of cake (yes, I had first hand experience performing the transaction but was given a discount code for it). Invoicing was detailed, concise and most of all, easy to understand. Anyway, back to the review of the decal… here are some pictures of the unboxing:

Front of package

Back of package. Nice touch- ‘Earth Friendly’

Trunk/Branches come in large squares. Individual pieces are marked alphabetically to denote join areas

The sakura flowers

Instructions – model specific directions

Here are there ‘before’ pictures- a plain empty wall adjacent to my bedroom, facing the stairway to the third floor. I’ve always wanted to decorate the wall but just haven’t found the right piece to go with it. I was hoping the Winter Sakura will do just the trick

View from top flight stairs

View from masterbedroom doorway

Next comes the part where we follow the instructions in the pack and cut out the sticker pieces according to the diagram given. We then laid the pieces on the ground to form the desired pattern. The instructions were a breeze to understand and follow. Also, the Winter Sakura decal isn’t exactly a motif based design hence there wasn’t much room to deviate from the intended design.

We decided not to stick the decal upright like the example illustrated in the instruction set as well as the one seen on the website (see below)

We decided to stick it lengthwise to allow the design to encroach more of our wall. Else it would’ve only covered 1/3 of it. YinLeng then stuck up the pieces on the wall with masking tape to enable us to visualize how it’d look when applied. We decided to get a bit creative and deviate a little from the intended design to cover more wall. We even decided that we’d have some loose flowers, to mimic them blowing in the wind. At this point, we weren’t really certain if the entire project would turn out the way we had in mind (especially the loose flowers bit).

Laying it out on the wall to ‘preview’ the design

Now, the tough part – applying the decal. I did the easiest bit, which was to give the wall a good clean wipe. YinLeng then started on sticking the main branch. The squeegees given to press the decal against the transfer paper were hard paper cards, which weren’t really sturdy enough, and we didn’t find them particularly useful for the application. We decided to use my ALL-IT Hypermarket member card and an RHB bank card instead. Applying the decals didn’t seem as straightforward as it should have to us as we were extremely vary of air bubbles, sticking it incorrectly, pulling the transfer paper incorrectly etc. In truth, you don’t need a very steep learning curve to do it as we found out after having stuck on several pieces of the decal. It becomes somewhat intuitive after a while and we were well on our way to getting the entire Sakura tree stuck up on the wall.

The tree’s up. Flowers were then pasted on for 2nd stage of ‘preview”

Once the tree was up, the next bit that was left was really to stick the flowers up. This was the part i found a little tedious as the flower (the white bit) and outline (the pink bit) came separately. Applying the white bits were easy but the pink bits required a lot of precision as we had to ensure that it completely covered the white of the flower. In their defense, the only reason i can think of why the decal was designed this way was to enable a higher level of customization i.e. by allowing users to select from several colour schemes for the flowers.

Alas, we were done. The end-to-end process took a little over 2 hrs but I’m assuming that’s just because YinLeng and I were first time novices with wall decals. Conclusion – I am pretty darn pleased with how the decals turned out. The quality of the vinyl is good (i’ve tried removing and reapplying with the smaller pieces and they stuck on well on the second application) – colours are strong and vivid. In fact, looking at it, you’d think I had a professional paint a Sakura tree on my wall. It really is an amazing effect. My wall is now complete and I get a great sense of accomplishment looking at the beautiful decal everytime i go upstairs and head to my room. Well done, somethinurby.com! and thanks for the sample too.

Here’s a list of pros and cons from my experience:

Pros

Well designed package. All pieces came intact upon delivery – comes in 6 big squares which needed to be cut up into smaller pieces to be manipulated and laid out into your desired design pattern. Makes sense to pack it this way so shipment costs can be reduced. Package size is about the size of a laserdic jacket (if you’re asking what a laserdisc is, you better ask mommy if it’s okay to stick that decal on her wall)
Clear and concise, easy to follow instructions – we didn’t have much trouble at all comprehending the directions to applying the decal
High quality vinyl – did not tear when i applied stress on it; re-applicable- which allows you to undo your mistakes without staining your walls; did not smell toxic (not sure if it tastes toxic. I’m not licking it to find out)

Excellent look and feel to finished product – perhaps by having to DIY the sticking bit, it gives the individual a greater sense of achievement. Regardless, the final outcome blew me away. Even from up close, i couldn’t tell that these were stickers (they still look painted) until i touched them. They stuck on so well I wouldn’t be worried about them peeling off… but if they do, that’s just going to be another blog post I suppose

A word on their website- really easy to use. Transacting at somethingurby was seamless and straightforward. Feel good look about their website, with a tinge of fun factor in their layout and content

Cons

Squeegee was no good – A paper card squeegee didnt do the job for me. We opted for plastic cards from my wallet instead. I suppose somethinurby made the squeegees from paper as a concious effort to comply to being ‘green’
A little pricey – the decal i chose cost RM219. Apart from the Winter Sakura, all their other decals retail from about RM139-155. Still, it’s much cheaper than wallpaper or buying a piece of art for your wall.
A word on their website – product offerings aren’t aplenty right now. But they’re relatively new so give them a break, I’m sure there’ll be lots more to come from this promising site.

In short, I’m extremely happy with their product and would gladly recommend it to anyone. In the long run, I suppose RM139-155 isn’t exactly a big amount you’re paying for something you look at and pass by every single day. My parents came over and really liked what they saw.

The one uber cool touch that came with the package was a proper thank you note and some decal samples which you could give to your friends to try out. Now that’s what I call marketing!