I think your idea of displaying clearly is a good one GPS has its limitations especially if you live in a private road or a place that the GPS gets confused at! the last 2 houses I had, where both on private roads with 4 and 6 other houses, the houses just didn't show up on GPS the road did leading to them which was part of the address, in the first house it was me ringing the emergancy services alot as my dad was ill and I used to have to run out of the house down the road across a parking lot to stand at the end of the road waiting for the ambulance, the next house, I no longer had to do that as my dad had died, but the house at the end had the same problem elderly father who was ill, I was the first house there and if I saw them doing the same vigil I had to do, I would offer to stand there so they could get back, eventually their son built a brilliant sign which looked like and olde worlde, English Pub sign with the names of all the houses on it (no numbers in that village so double confusion!) worked a treat. If you are artistic you could do a really cool picture and put a light over it at night. just a thought.

Good planning is half the battle. If you want the front rounded off - and I'm assuming here you mean the corners rounded off, but I suppose you could also mean rounding off the front edge of the shelf - then it will have to protrude, as handymac suggests by a couple of inches perhaps. Do you want it to protrude? If you do, then you have to see what widths your floorboards are and make sure that the outer board will have enough support in the event that someone leans or hangs on it. If the widths work out so that the outer board does not have enough support, then it may look best to trim down the width of the inner board, so you can still use a full width for the outer board. Is there solid wood beneath the drywall on this ledge? You need to know how you are going to hold it down and hold the boards together. Handymac is suggesting glue. Me, I like to be able to take things like this apart so that it is easier to repaint the wall, so I would use screws - either round-head or oval-head brass screws, to make them a feature, or carefully countersunk flat-head screws. If there is not solid wood under the drywall... hmm, the ledge at least has to be framed so you could install 16" long pieces cross-wise instead of going length-wise. Or go length-wise, but make sure your inner and outer boards can be screwed. If the shelf does not protrude, holding it down is less of an issue. Heck, it could just be sitting in there - given the profile of the opening, it would stay in well, and frankly, I think it would look odd if it did protrude from this framed opening (and I think I would like a square corner too). Think of the shelf as a giant cutting board. You could assemble it out of floorboards or other lumber and make it removable as a whole. (you have to be able to get the wider back part through the front opening of the space, on a diagonal - check that you can do this). I've never worked with floorboards, but I'm thinking you may not even have to attach them to each other if you pre-finish them and if the outermost board hooks behind the opening's framing. The outer board would hold all the others in. Mac and I are both assuming your floorboards are solid wood, not laminate. If they're laminate (or if you use the boards cross-wise), you will need to conceal the edge as you would for plywood, either with iron-on edge banding as for RRMI's suggestion, or with purchased wood trim. If using the flooring proves too complicated, then solid lumber is available in a variety of sizes, and you should be able to buy dimensions that would add up to 16" or whatever you want. Say, two 1x6s, which would be actually 5 and 1/2 wide, and two 1x3s, which would be 2 and 1/2. I'm sure you can also buy a board that is the full size, but it may not be as stable (staying flat), it may not be finished lumber... or not precisely the width you need. Again, if you need to add a fiddly piece to make the width right, fit it at the inside edge. Cutting the pieces precisely to length (and width) will be tricky and in case you blow it (as I am always at risk of doing), you could plan to use corner moulding atop the ends or along the back to conceal any unevenness. To give any more specific advice, we would have to know more about your tools and your woodworking skills. Karin L PS your photos don't show for me so I could only magnify the thumbnails.

I found this older article by Joanne Furio for the San Francisco Chronical. It sums up my feelings pretty well with regard to photos as decor. I couldn't abide every surface (or just too many surfaces) in a home being dedicated to family photographs. People will argue with this view and many more couldn't imagine not being surrounding by pictures of those they love..... but here are some other thoughts. "As a powerful purveyor of middle-class style, Pottery Barn is a formidable player in the development of trends, and a savvy observer. That's why I took notice at an unusual spread in the company's spring catalog. In a dining-room vignette, hanging on the walls and propped against a sideboard and leaning wall shelves, were gigantic photos of children and their parents, the occupants of this imaginary family's home. The largest was a poster-size image of a cherubic boy. Another, maybe 2 feet square, was of two young children. All of the images were in black frames that matched the sideboard and shelves. To me, this seemingly innocuous decor represented the height of narcissism, the self-absorption of a generation more interested in turning the camera on themselves than outward. Picking up on what's already happening in homes across America, Pottery Barn seemed to confirm that the traditional ways of displaying family photos -- once relegated to the hallway or the mantel -- are no longer enough for the modern family. We must be surrounded by darling -- and colossal -- images of ourselves. Family photos have taken center stage, taken on a more important role in decorating and, perhaps, taken over. Not so, say Bay Area decorators, who consider over-the-top displays to be offensive and to actually detract from the decor. Exhibiting family shots in an artful manner requires the right place, creative framing and, just as important, discretion. "Narcissism can go to the extreme," says Greenbrae interior designer Jean Larette, who once visited a Malibu hairdresser whose home was adorned with life-size images of his former Playmate wife. That experience led her to one of her decorating no-nos: Don't display images of your ex in your home. "It makes people uncomfortable," she says. "Family photographs are wonderful," Larette adds, "if they are carefully chosen and beautifully displayed." Here, local designers offer suggestions on what, where and how to display or hang your family photos with finesse. Edit carefully: "Don't fill every corner of your house with family photos," says Jan York of Jan York & Associates Interior Design in San Francisco. Because framed photos will be displayed for quite some time, choosing a complementary selection is vital. Maybe it's important to represent both sides of the family in an intergenerational assemblage. Sheila Gleeson of San Francisco, one of York's clients, narrowed her selection to her immediate family, which includes her husband and two sons. From there, they selected "only fun pictures that represent special times and places they have been as a family," Gleeson says. York likes creating sepia-toned photographs from color images, which have "a warm look and feel." Both she and Larette expressed a penchant for black-and-whites, which have a graphic quality. Gleeson chose to use color shots in her arrangement because they made up the majority of her family shots. Be sensitive to subject matter: Although it may seem obvious, Larette advises against placing naked pictures of yourself in the powder room (a phenomenon she has also seen) "unless you look like Elle Macpherson." And, if you are or were a model or actress, your framed head shot should not be on display. "People may wonder if perhaps you may be soliciting work from your dinner guests," Larette says. Larette also frowns upon pasting photos of yourself in thinner days on the refrigerator door for inspiration. That's a case of making a highly personal subject -- your weight -- public. Choose an appropriate spot: As for displaying large images of yourself and your children (a la Pottery Barn), San Francisco designer Shelly Amoroso of Amoroso Design says it's all right as long as "you're a great photographer and you've taken great shots of your kids." The dining room, however, is not the right place. Amoroso also cautions: "A shot of you and your college buddies at a kegger party is not appropriate for the dining room." Such a room is more formal and demands more serious subject matter. Ditto for the living room, says Haruko Yoshida, the interior designer behind Integrafika Design Studio of San Francisco and Tokyo. She doesn't believe photos of family or friends should be there. "They're too personal," she says. What areas did the designers agree were appropriate for a more casual approach to photographic displays? The family room, den, home theater or playroom. They also like hallways and stairways, traditionally the spot for a family gallery, because they are intermediary spaces that "don't interfere with the decor," explains York. She and Gleeson ultimately chose the stairway to the second floor as the place to hang Gleeson's family photographs. If you have a large assortment of snapshots, Amoroso recommends displaying an edited selection on the back wall of a built-in desk, or on a framed corkboard above a desk. She also likes displaying snapshots on a kitchen wall covered with cork, where invitations and other family papers can hang. For a teen's bedroom, she recently created a prettier alternative by upholstering closet doors with fabric and crisscrossed ribbon, where snapshots are tucked in. In general, avoid overkill and underkill. Larette frowns upon covering a grand piano with photos; Amoroso doesn't like a lone photo on the mantel. Instead, photos should be clustered into small groups, whether they are on the mantel, piano, tabletop or wall. Framing and matting: These materials tie together the disparate images. Keeping the style of the house and the decor in mind, the designers recommend that frames be related, though not necessarily identical. "You need to have some continuity," York says. For a "crisp and elegant look," Larette suggests silver frames of various sizes grouped together. York likes to mix up finishes within a category, such as an antique silver frame with one that's more modern. Not recommended: mixing metal and wood frames. As for mats, the designers suggest using the same color or same size around each photo. For Lis and Misha Petkevich, Larette used black frames with ivory mats to finish off photos of the couple and their three children. Larette then evenly spaced them on a wall in their Presidio Terrace family room. Because displays of family photographs are subject to change, the design experts recommend using frames or mats that are readily available. If you've created a wall, leave room so you can expand in the future, York says. Or replace older shots with newer ones."

I guess I'm a sentimental old fool (at 53, LOL). Here is my experience... I have a few picture books printed online and they are great. However, IMHO, they can't compare to actual printed (or developed) pictures. I was tasked with writing a biography of my M&D's life, and believe me, it wasn't short! To do this I used verbal accounts from my M&D; a few thousand slides from my M&D, GP's and Great A&U; hundreds of photographs; my Great Aunt's daily journals; and tape recordings we sent from overseas to my GPs'. I digitized and transcribed almost all of it. Even though the slides were decades old, the digital quality was amazing. The scanned photographs, even the old, old, B&W's, were generally good quality. I only used a few pictures that were taken with a digital camera. The best part of the whole process was the obvious telling of their life story by my parents to me. As an adult you hear stories you weren't aware of as a child or wouldn't have been privileged to. The second best was handling the old photographs. Actually feeling them in my hands, turning them over to see if there was any writing on them, thinking of all those who had looked at them before me. Right up with this feeling was the handling of letters and my Aunt's journals. It's as if I could re-touch family members deceased through the pictures, letters, and journals. The nostalgia cloaked me with love when sifting through the pictures, holding each one in my hand and remembering. The biography is now complete and published. It's an amazing story and there are pictures, journal excerpts, and even conversations from the tapes that were transcribed (like when my sister was born and my Dad got the other four kids' reactions and my Mom talked to my Grandparents right after the birth). This is a long winded way to say that I prefer, much prefer, holding and looking through actual photographs to looking at the pictures printed in a book. If they are in a photo album, you can still take them out, look at the back, handle them, scan them, kiss the faces of your loved ones, hold them next to your heart. It's just not quite the same, for me, when it's a picture printed on a page of a book.