Heather Johnson Photography

I have been in love with these puzzles since the moment I saw them five years ago. I also knew I would never use them as puzzles–they were simply too cute and needed to hang on the wall. I immediately came home that afternoon and hot-glued all of the pieces down so that these could hang in Holly’s nursery.  And they did, for awhile.

Sadly they have been sitting in a closet for the past eight months, ever since we moved to our new house. Sure….I can blame it on being pregnant all summer, and then newborn care after that, but the truth is I was a bit overwhelmed when we moved in, and when I am overwhelmed my creativity gets zapped, and I end up doing a whole lot of nothing.

It appears something in me has snapped finally, and I have spent the last three days rearranging  our entire top floor and thinking up plans for decorating virtually every room in our home. My first big task was moving the girls into the same room on our first floor. (Don’t ask how that’s going yet…that’s a whole other story!) I have taken the second floor, which was previously just Holly’s room, and turned it into a creative wonderland with a sewing and art area for the girls and I, as well as office space for me. The girls also have a cute play area at the top of the stairs. (This is my attempt at making their downstairs, more visible room, not look so tornado-like with its toy explosions.) Oh yeah, and I was even able to carve a “guest room” up there too!

All of this moving around did make me laugh when I sat back and looked at my work.  Time and time again in my life I have rearranged rooms and somehow it always happens that I have just the right amount/shape of furniture in colors and styles that all flow. I have no idea how this happens, so much of it has been bought over time, but it speaks to the fact that if you just buy and collect what you truly love it all works out in the end.

I am starting a list of things I want to accomplish this year at home, and can’t wait to share it all here.  It’s not ready yet, but I did manage to get one thing already crossed off (*almost)–the hanging of the puzzles pictured above.

I say almost because my husband likes to do the hanging at our house, or should I say I like him to do the hanging.  (I am, for better or worse, a bit of a loose cannon when it comes to hanging things.)  I start out all precise–measuring, marking, leveling–but get so impatient by the end of it that I sort of just dive in, pound the nails, and create a few mistakes along the way. I am not proud of this, but it is who I am–and my husband knows it!

So as not to mark up the walls in this house, I took the time yesterday to actually create paper templates of the frames so I could see what arrangement I like best.  Super glad I did this, as the way I was going to hang them isn’t the way I think I want to hang them now. Behold the two options….

Can you guess which way I am going to go? Or better yet, leave me your vote in the comments below.

I hope to be able to show you how it turned out soon, if for no other reason than to not subject the poor baby to any more project-filled Saturday afternoons. She sat in her little pink papasan most of the day watching me jump from room to room, and if her mood yesterday is any indication she has already had enough of this nonsense.