I am right there with you! We are also living on our site, in a 37 foot motorhome with FIVE children, dh and myself. I told dh last Saturday that the "camping fun" has worn off, and now I'm ready to be out of this RV!! ;o) We still have hangers on our 3rd floor, finishers on our first floor (they are still in there scraping away), electricians advising me that no one can drive in our driveway tomorrow morning because they'll be digging a trench out to our barn for electricity, the tile crew (a very large one) start tomorrow on the showers, and I'm trying to paint swatches of paint on the walls to hurry up and choose our wall colors. Uggghhh. My tile was delivered a week ago, and I can never get in there to lay a bunch out and see how it looks. The only day they take off is the day we are off at church and then hanging out relaxing, not dealing with our house. :o( So, hopefully as people send you patience from this forum, they'll send some my way too. I am ready to have some privacy back! This afternoon, dh and I were having a discussion about locking in our rates. It's time to do that, and we were debating on points, interest rate choice, etc. WEll, I look over and the entire finishing crew is out having a smoking break on our back deck, and they are staring over at us. We had another window in the rv open. I felt like asking them which option they would choose.... it was obvious they were hearing what we were saying. Oy! This is crazy. I am a fairly private person, and our home is our sanctuary. Lately it feels more like a zoo!! :op

ideefixe, who's to say that jjkadaba69 would KEEP the out-of-focus snaps? Maybe she'd toss those as she goes. But she'd rather simply stick the prints she already has into an album. I certainly hope you didn't spend time SCANNING any of those out-of-focus snaps--that would be a big waste of time. I know people often suggest scanning your pictures, but I just can't wrap my head around it. Talk about chore clutter! Another thing to put on your to-do-list, and another system to organize. Plus, the whole POINT of pictures is to LOOK at them. I have yet to see anyone live in a world in which digital pictures get looked at after they're taken. The very format makes it difficult. If course, if your pictures are already digital, then you'll want to store them digitally, and figure out how to look at them (I love the idea of those electronic frames that display digital pictures). Of course, I'm still film-only, and MY pictures don't get looked at after they're taken either. That would be the point of getting albums and slipping the pictures in there--it would be easiER to look at them. And the fastest way to get pictures that are ALREADY printed to be easily view-able is to simply stick them in an album, right as they are. Without the intermediate step of scanning them. The process of moving the photos from one format to another seems like a major waste of time. jjkadaba69, maybe you should price out 3-ring binders, and plastic page protectors. The other option is to buy as many as you can find from a place like Target or Kmart all at once time, so they'll match. Start saving up the ear-marked money first, and then pick a time to go spend $100 or more on matching albums. You can also pick a basic color (maybe medium blue w/ yellow), and then buy ones that coordinate whenever & wherever you can find them. Also, it's only the SPINE that will be seen when they're on the shelf, so you can simply pick a basic design & size, and then not worry about color so much, and so you can buy them in stages.

I make scrapbooks for each of my brothers and their children, my children, my mom, dad, myself, and my bf, grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles. WHEW! I ALWAYS get douple prints, so if I have a photo of say myself and one of my brothers, I get a copy in my scrapbook and I make a page for his using the second photo. I gave each of my family members a scrapbook for christmas last year (over 17) and they LOVE getting pages added to it, as I make them. I bought a BUNCH of 3 ring binders cheap at yard sales, and put their names on the back of the binder, so when I get photos developed I put their photos in a page protecter inside their binder till I have the time to scrap their photos. When I have several done, I give them their pages for holidays, or birthday gifts. They all LOVE this. Love Penny

Joann: Thank you for the design and all of the example pics. You and your DH are really very talented. Did either or you ever do this work professionally or is it a hobby? Thank you for highlighting all of the architectural details. That is exactly what I need to see. DH and I were debating about this glass as the side panels are quite narrow so your pics are very helpful to visualize the whole effect. I should mention here that this is not a fully custom shop. We basically get to pick different door/cabinet styles, wood species/stain/hardware, height/width, drawers and component configuration so I may not be able to order some of the lovely design details you incorporated, though I will bring in the pics and inquire about it on Sat. I did notice the bottom doors on the console are not full overly which it looks like you designed for the sides. I'm going to guess my top option will not be full overlay so we'll see. Also, my hinges are not the euro style on bottom and stick out the sides. Wouldn't they need to match? As the TV is 50" wide, I was thinking of having the center opening be 51". Then in the vertical direction with the TV height at 31" I was thinking we should add a bit of beathing room--say about 3" extra on top so the TV box would then be 51"W x 34"H. I think I'll check the TV specs to see any ventillation requirements, though I know DH wants some holes in the back for cables, etc. I notice hoosiergirl's TV is very tightly set into the built-in. I'll let you know what they come up with when we go in over the weekend.