Proportion....when the catalog gives the impression a product is larger than it is.

These angels look like these should nicely fill in the space over a sofa.

They are 12"x16"......

The lack of electrical cords. I mean, come on, even if you have floor outlets, you still have a lamp cord.

Wish they gave actual room dimensions as full layout photos can be so deceiving. I'd also appreciate if they gave you an idea of the focus room's relationship to other rooms in the home.

Great topic!

Yes, the fresh flowers, the lack of human life, canine / feline toys (although we do often get to see the animals themselves in the pics -- shows somebody "caring" lives there, right?), the incredible, abundant, just-so lighting, the accessorizing which precludes real life (like making anything to eat in the kitchen, like paying bills, like folding laundry), etc.

My sardonic favorites, though, are the hipster, uber-cool, stylish & funky folk who occupy equally hip, cool, stylish & funky old houses -- see this all the time in Sunset. Do they get a discount rate on Vue dc glasses? I live in the 'burbs and drive a minivan, wear a unisex t-shirt from a child's school when gardening, but I never see that.

I think all of these, esp. the artful lighting, are why I tend to steer clear of blogs as well -- when I look at our home and esp. whenever I take pics inside our home I am unable to get that gorgeous sunlit look. And I guess I am immature enough that it bothers me, wondering "why can't I achieve what *so* many do?" (because there are about one billion blogs!) I look at my kitchen counters, not covered with arrangements of fruit & veg with one cut open, lying just so, but instead boxes of crackers and a toaster oven, the mixer and a drying rack, the cupboard doors covered with drawings and class pictures.

A few years ago in this forum I posted a pic of our FR in real life -- kids' Bozo the clown and other toys were out, and a poster (neither kindly nor unkindly) commented on how messy my house was. I was totally taken aback because I didn't think so: little children live here and their toys live here. Should I have squirreled all of them (children inc.) away for a photo? According to the unnatural expectations given by mags and blogs, I guess so.

I've mentioned this before but mine is putting cr*p, especially hanging pictures, on the front of bookcases. On top of books in the bookcases! This just strikes me as the complete height of form ignoring function. After all, if the person who lives in the room is a reader, that won't work. If the person who lives in the room isn't a reader, then why pretend to be one by showing off a full bookcase?!

I have noticed that in the past few years, and with decor blogs becoming popular, the art and artifice of magazine/design layout has become more 'visible' to the lay person. Emily Henderson, the winner of last season's HGTV Design Star, is a stylist. And she is so refreshingly honest about how she does what she does!

Photography and lighting have also come a looooong way with technology advances. Equipment such as cameras, filters and lights that used to cost far more than any amateur could pay have now become affordable and I've read quite a few how-to-photograph posts on blogs. It really is amazing what good lighting and camera work can do to a space.

In this category, IMO, are the blogs A Country Farmhouse, Chez Larsen, A Beach Cottage and For Love of a House (among others). Every one is done by an amateur with a great eye, good equipment and a passion for design. Love seeing all of it and the best of their images are darn close, if not equal, to anything I"ve seen in shelter magazines.

Ann

Flopped photos of vignettes in the same room to give a different perspective - it can drive you crazy trying to figure out the layout.

{{!gwi}}

Flowers, period. Most rooms do indeed look better with a huge vase of delphiniums or a counter top of sunflowers, etc.
Take the flowers away and there is zero color in the room and it's boring.

Absolutely, Bumblebeez! If we all had the floral budgets that are the norm in these shoots, it almost wouldn't matter what our furniture & accessories looked like! Spectacular arrangements of flowers & greenery DO make a room!

I'm afraid flowers couldn't carry my rooms, although I suppose I could do plastic. Some happy people do have them delivered and tended every day or two, though, so in those cases I suppose they would be a valid design feature.

For those who don't like pictures in front of books, how about stacking them in piles of different colors? Or turning them all backward so the paper edges face out? :) Or removing 4/5 of them to make a wall of bookshelves appear "lighter?"

I always wonder if the owners realized this was how their homes would appear in a national magazine. Talk about peeves!

Books stacked on the floor as tables. What if I want to read the book on the bottom?
And, I do read my books, otherwise I don't want them.

Let's see:

a)Drives me CRAZY to see HUGE photos of a single chair instead of at least ONE damn shot of the full room. Yes -- I would like to see details BUT I would love to see the full room first and foremost. Same complaint about garden shots -- show me the whole garden (or at least the whole bed or the whole pot) and THEN add the artful shot of a single perfect bloom.

b)When it comes to floral arrangements -- yes -- I do love to see a floral arrangement that actually suits the room and works with it. I consider floral arrangement to be an art -- and I like to see the magazine use local talent. Nice for everyone ....

c)Writing over the photos -- sheesh! 'Nuff said.

d)And I do LOVE to see dogs and cats in the photos .... makes me smile every time! :)

e) Show me the Kitchen and the Bathroom. Yes -- I know that the magazine is probably "saving" those shots for another issue or even another special magazine in their "stable" ... but it drives me NUTS when I can just glimpse a room in a shot but not see it ..... yes .... I am nosy!

I think this may have been linked before but this thread reminds me of the catalog living blog. "A glimpse into the exciting world of the people living in your catalogs."

Here is a link that might be useful: Catalog Living

LOL Dee, I like that blog.

I totally agree with teacats. I want to see the whole room, not just one piece of furniture in a tiny part of it. AND, I want to see a floorplan of the remodel so I can see what was changed. It's hard to appreciate the "after" if you never saw the "before".

I have to laugh about seeing the same "arrangement of flowers in every room." That's because about a year ago I bought a toile vase that I just fell in love with. I move it around every few months.

One day here on GW I noticed that vase was in all the pictures I'd been posting, from kitchen to living room!

I was so embarrassed because I figured people thought that was the only thing I owned. I now call it The Traveling Vase. :)

Back to magazines. NOTHING looks lived in. I buy them for color ideas and accessorizing, but that's about it.

No cords! And often no end tables and no lamps.

Looks all lovely and serene, but imagine sitting there at night...

I don't read decorating magazines, but I'll jump in with my pet peeves on decorating shows and blogs.

When they put a brand new wood floor in and then proceed to cover it up with an "area carpet" that's as big as the entire room so that only a couple inches of the floor peeks out. And since when do we call them area "carpets" anyway? Did I miss the memo on that? Was that the same memo that said we were supposed to call them smashed potatoes instead of mashed potatoes?

When they have all kinds of glass lanterns and beautiful upholstered furniture out on the patio that would be completely ruined within weeks with the weather at my house. I can't even get a pillow to stay put on a patio chair with the wind here.

I'm agreeing with quite a few that have been said already. Magazines are something I look forward to every month. But lately I haven't ripped out much to save for ideas. I like the full room photos rather than a picture of one chair. Yup, magazines always have sunny days and clean houses. I will miss Borders. Now even the bookstores that are selling the magazines that are going away are going away. Interior design blogs are good but to me there is something about holding a magazine.

:) Same here for the stuff outside here in Georgia, Sashasmommy. Now, back in Los Angeles, a world away...

But as for hitting a nerve, agree MAJOR disapproval for closeups of a single perfect bloom or lamp finial. I think of the ones in garden books as parking-lot pix because the closeups could literally come from the stock hauled out to the parking lot for sale at Home Depot--for those "authors" too cheap to just purchase some stock photos to pad out their books.

SG: "Absolutely, Bumblebeez! If we all had the floral budgets that are the norm in these shoots, it almost wouldn't matter what our furniture & accessories looked like! Spectacular arrangements of flowers & greenery DO make a room!"
I agree, somewhat, but had to smile seeing BBee's post coming right after chijim's pics...not ONE flower in this good-looking room! I use apples instead of flowers, too.
Years ago when houseplants were all the rage, my father pointed out the ridiculous staging of a large fern sitting on the back of a toilet, wondering how the heck a guy could raise the lid! ;>)
I look for inspiring beauty in mags and blogs and do not want to see IRL toys, laundry stacked, and all the stuff of everyday life. I love to see my home just prior to guests coming, when there ARE fresh flowers and all is neat and in it's place.
teacats: "a)Drives me CRAZY to see HUGE photos of a single chair instead of at least ONE damn shot of the full room. Yes -- I would like to see details BUT I would love to see the full room first and foremost. Same complaint about garden shots -- show me the whole garden (or at least the whole bed or the whole pot) and THEN add the artful shot of a single perfect bloom."
Oh amen, TC! I buy almost no garden mags because of this. I want garden layout and design ideas, not ready-for-framing close up pics.

No floorplan is my biggest one.

Fine Homebuilding, which publishes an annual Houses Issue, and an annual Kitchens issue publishes a floor plan with a key of where the photos were taken. I like this a lot. They post a wide variety of interesting houses and kitchens in these issues, with some of the most boring interior shots I have ever seen--but they are realistic.

The thing behind the flowers is that compositionally a room that is well designed and decorated for every day living may look a bit dull compositionally for a photograph.

Compare getting a snapshot taken at work vs. a photographer coming to your house to take a family portrait. The photographer often has light bouncing umbrellas, makes you stand in unnatural positions and uses other tricks to make the photo compositionally better.

So, when I read complaints, (sometimes published in the letters to the editor) that the interiors look unrealistically pristine --"well no S---Sherlock". How many people go around looking like it's their wedding day every day? It's a photoshoot showing design, not how the house lives every day. The stylists often arrive with a Truck of their own accessories. If I want to look at boring photos of interiors, I'll look at real estate photos or "Bad MLS Photos" There is a reason why Vogue is Vogue, and "Celebrities Without Makeup" is the National Enquirer.

I love celebrities without makeup. And bad beach bodies, heehee

I agree with a lot of what others already said but I'll repeat the two that bug me the most. I really wish some of the rooms would look a little more realistic. I know a lot of accessories are for pretty and are to have meaning but the one that gets me the most is "fruit". I don't want a bowl of fruit in my LR or anywhere but the kitchen.

Also really dislike how magazines and blogs will only show the close ups or weird angles. I want to see the whole thing when you're done dangit! I've actually stopped reading a few blogs because of that!

Bumble - I like seeing celebs without makeup too. :)

For me, the more prominent the vignette or the close-up is on any blog, layout or designers website, the more alarm bells go off in my head.

I could spend a weekend creating 100 vignettes that are photo op worthy and you would think my designs were fabulous. If you lived on a table top or a 5 x 5 corner of a room. If that's what the blogger or designer does my paranoid, skeptical side kicks in and I form the opinion that the designer can't do an entire room that holds together well enough to shoot pictures of.

When "they" assume that we all have 10' ceilings and lots of windows for natural light, photos taken with wide-angled lenses, seeing the same pillows in different rooms, and , as mentioned, the flowers for that accent/pop of colour.
Flowers aren't an accent to be used as an accessory.
I buy them if I have the time to stop to look at them and if they are on sale and look like they will last for more than 3 days. Flowers, in a photo shoot, are a decorators cop-out.

Descriptions of things that are not in the photo,

A monochromatic room with one bowl of red apples, flowers, etc.

Sofas with so many pillows that you could not possibly sit on them,

focal point objects that are pretty much attainable, like a Tibetan monk's monastery cabinet from the 1700's - sure I'll pick one up next time I go to Target.

In catalogs, items not for sale. This happens a lot in PB.

RE: Flowers and greenery in rooms
Do any of remember the old Christopher Lowell show and his makeovers?
He used to diss Martha on his show and how her style was not in most people's budgets--which was kind of funny at the time because much of what we were salivating over Martha bought at tag, flea and yard sales.
It was how she put it all together.
When Christopher would do his 'budget-friendly' over-the- top/dramatic makeovers he used copious amounts of greenery--many of them w/uplighting, fine for a party or a budget that allows you to toss when they no longer look great, but the reality is...the plants need to be near a light source to survive and look their best...but catering to their needs doesn't always make for great decorating.

Take away the dramatic plants and his rooms were so-so, on the otherhand, the dissed Martha style looked great as is, but would still work w/the addition of greenery and flowers.

Hmmm, I love decorating mags and even more so blogs. I really can't think of any specific peeves - other than wanting the source on more items. Not always possible I know. Of course the room is staged - we all know that. And I wouldn't want a room of my house in a magazine if it wasn't cleaned up, etc.

What I've found interesting is several homes/rooms on blogs that I frequent have recently been photographed for magazines. Fortheloveofahouse, velvet and linen are just a couple. Kevin and Layla (theletteredcottage.com) shot pics of Angela's (thepaintedhouse) NC cottage for the most recent issue of Cottages & Bungalows. I love when the bloggers will explain on their blogs how the shoot took place.

I've not noticed a spread with the same vase/flowers in every room - that would bug me, but I do love and have fresh flowers in our home. It doesn't have to be expensive.

Now I will have to start looking more closely at Oakley's pics, and see how many rooms you use that vase in! LOL

As you can probably tell -- I AM a decor magazine and book addict (LOL!) ... so I do realize that rooms/homes/scenes are carefully set-up -- and do not represent the "real-life" of those photos! :)

BUT I HATE to see rooms (of any sort) that simply look like a useless advertisement for the designer -- but NOT the homeowner -- no lamps, chairs without tables of any sort, a pile of pillows (that happen to advertise the designer's latest fabric line) Sheesh!

Loved Joni Webb's posting (at her blog "Cote de Texas") about the photo shoot of her kitchen ... and she showed photos of the differences between her IRL (In Real Life) shots and the Staged photos! LOL!

I do not mind seeing lovely Really-Big-Money Rooms with their artworks, antiques etc. Yep! -- there is no-way-in-hades that I could ever afford them -- but sometimes that item MIGHT create an opportunity to find a similar inspiration item that IS in my price range (Etsy/EBay/Thrift/Garage)

I love to see all kinds of floral arrangements and other additions (fruit in bowls, greenery, etc.)

I think some of the comments hit on an issue which has been discussed on another thread. (I'll have to search for the thread.) People talked about how they were over the "HGTV" look. The rooms never looked LIVED in. The accessories rarely even have a connection to the owners... they're just mass-produced stuff picked out to match a color scheme or decor.

I am frequently complaining about this or that flaw in my house, a cluttered corner, ugly carpeting we will be removing, etc.. My mother keeps telling me that "most people's houses are not showplaces." But, you wouldn't know that from magazines, HGTV, blogs, or even this forum. And I *do* think that there are plenty of people who manage to make their houses look great, and nearly flawless. But I think more people have messier houses than mine, with more flaws. I have developed unrealistic expectations of what a house should look like, so that I chronically (though I rarely admit to it) feel a bit inadequate when it comes to my house.

I love looking at magazines - especially ones like This Old House, which often show somewhat less cookie-cutter and eclectic decor. (Although I think the This Old House magazine look is becoming kind of mainstream.) Even those magazines give me unrealistic ideas about how clean and uncluttered I should expect my house to be. But, I just have to think of them as fun and inspirational - maybe I can take one or two ideas and incorporate them in my house, rather than expecting the whole house to look like the layouts there.

BIG pet peeve: no info on paint color or where an object was acquired. Private collection, OK, that I get. But for half the things in a room? And why can't you tell me what color that wall is? And while you're at it, what color is the trim anyway???

Bigger pet peeve: I have a laundry room. My bathrooms have toilets. I have a coat closet, my medicine cabinet has shelves, I have a garbage can in the kitchen, I need to store a broom, a vacuum cleaner, a tool box...So please, once in a while, I'd like to see yours. Yes, I realize these things are not always glamorous, but I want to see how you have dealt with them.

Biggest pet peeve, and I even subscribe to a magazine that's SO guilty of this: animal remains seemingly in every article. If it's not a fur throw, it's a zebra skin rug, or some body part hanging off the wall. Faux is good, and faux is now good enough that you can't tell the difference. Use faux. Thank you.

I didn't read all of the responses yet. I got as far as rmkitchen's post. I agree about the 'life' thing. I remember a few yrs. ago I posted a pic of my LR after having just finished something. The space was neat and clean and someone commented on the randomn childs toy that I'd missed. They commented that tehy were so happy to see a picture where you could tell that people (and kids) lived there. That made me feel really good and now when you see a shot of my place you can nearly always find a childs toy or ragged dog toy about. Almost like where's Waldo?

Many yrs. ago somebody posted wanting everybody to go to their kitchens right then and there and take a picture and post it. It was one of the most memorable threads.

Tina - I notice the 1 arrangement of flowers in every room most often in House Beautiful.

I understand wanting to down-to-earth solutions to everyday problems in a forum like this, and it does bug me when "Storage and Organization" issues are so heavily staged that they show 12 identical boxes of something lined up because it is color coordinated.

However, do you really want to see ordinary living rooms and bedrooms in a magazine you pay money for? I don't, not really. I am not naive enough to think that the white minimalist pied a terre in Manhattan I saw this month looks like that when they are actually staying there, but why wouldn't I want to see the design at its purest without all the distractions?

I also realize that lamps have cords and they are either photoshopped out or taped down the leg of something so you don't see them, but again, it's getting rid of a distraction. Actually I try to hide my cords by painting them to match or running them a certain way---and actually by how I position outlets--so hiding them is a good thing to me anyway. (I had two outlets moved about two inches, and I know it's ridiculous). I don't want to look in a magazine and see a tangle of wires under a computer just because that's real life in a lot of cases. That just makes me wonder what else the designer was careless about and why the photographer or shoot editor didn't care enough to straighten it out.

It takes an incredible amount of work to get a shot that looks good for a magazine. They don't come in your house and shoot 50 of each one and pick the best. They may set one shot up for an hour, take three and then set up the next shot and walk away with a couple dozen pictures. That's why your pictures don't look like a magazine.

On the other hand I don't like things so heavily staged that it removes the owner's imprint. If all their accessories have been changed for the shoot--what is their layout supposed to be about?

I also think it is a bit much effort for people to heavily stage their photos for their afters in here with the perfectly placed throw or sliced apple on the cutting board--in here I want to see the real space, BUT without, necessarily, seeing the pile of mail that is always sitting there either.

drifting off topic a bit... we have a realtor in my area who puts the same orchid in nearly every single room and in almost every shot of her online listings. Drives me crazy. :) I mean really - one or two photos per listing would be fine, but after you've seen the same d*mn pink flower 10 photos in a row, listing after listing, it starts to get a little old. Quickly.

now I feel bad.

The magazine people are coming end of September, we are stopping at the florist the day before.

Same stylist who did Joni Webb's kitchen, so quite frankly I'm looking forward to it. Maybe I should be ashamed......I'll throw dirty laundry into every picture if you want..

:)

bkw, don't you dare !! I totally agree with Palimpset, we want to see perfection,
and fresh flowers, it's something to aim for.
Vitamin bottles and kleenex boxes, we know they've been stashed in the cupboards, don't want to see those.

My present home was photographed for a canadian magazine and looking at the pictures from 3 years ago, I was reminded of a few tweaks I should do, and a few things to put away. I won't go to the extent of leaving 3 mangoes on a tray on my patio ottoman but it sure looked nice, lol....

I no longer subscribe to magazines and only buy a few a year. I figure after subscribing for over 40 years (I was a genuine shelter magazine junkie) I've paid my dues and now look at many online magazines.

While I love looking at home decor pics I have many of the same pet peeves already mentioned. I've almost quit reading the articles accompanying the pics as many times they have no clue what they are talking about. I've been a crafter and a DIY-er for decades and when they tell how to do something I often know it won't work and the writer hasn't actually made it or gotten good how-to instructions. I credit the 20-somethings who know it all and have little experience with these snafus.

The magazine pics I like the most are the ones showing the owner's unique collections, furniture, or accessories. I can go to PB online to see those ubiquitous items seen in some pics.

I'm pretty sure those close-up shots are hiding the weeds in the garden and the unedited parts of the photo-shoot! LOL I didn't really want to see that anyhow. I take my own pics the same way! Doesn't everyone! :-D

One house we listed the RE agent left the camera case on my island when he took the pic. I asked him not to use the pic and I emailed him another I took without such distraction. RE pics are more to real life than magazine photo-shoots but IMO they should be the best one can do with what one has. Magazine layouts are to dream with and find inspiration (and sometimes critique for entertainment!), they are not remotely real life.

Lizzie's comments about everybody's houses looking so perfect on this forum, blogs and magazines, etc. struck me, as I recently checked online for homes for sale in my own zipcode. Looked at the listings with multiple photos, of which there were many. The homes, like mine, are smaller and not at all in a prime area, but I am still stunned at how awful, how dreadful, they all looked - messy, hopelessly dated, ugly, depressing interiors, toilet seats up, many incredibly cluttered, some downright dirty, really, really awful looking...after all that I guessI feel less inclined to mock the staged perfection that I WAS critical of beforehand. I want to be inspired.

peegee - it's so funny you mention that. I was going to mention the very same thing on this thread, but then I thought, well, it's probably not true in upscale suburbs, so I won't mention it. (Although I believe I have mentioned this very thing on another thread here.)

We're not selling for another couple years or so, but I sort of obsessively pore over the real estate listings so I can get a sense of what's out there, and what things are selling for. So many of the photos are HORRIBLE. My own next door neighbor's house has mostly pink walls with darker pink trim, with a turquoise bedroom. There is a hideous 1980s style shiny brass and glass ceiling light fixture (in a house built in 2002.) This is not in Florida, though the owner is older... this is in rural NH. All of the windows are covered in heavy maroon drapes. Every photo shows clothes over unmade beds, grocery bags and tools on the kitchen counters... I will seriously never use the real estate agent who is selling that house... why he decided to put those photos up online, rather than getting better photos, is beyond me. But anyway, these ugly interiors are pretty much the norm, with any rare "nice" one really standing out.

I'm in an area with large lots (5-10 acres, with a few that are smaller and some that are much bigger) and it's a hodgepodge of houses... old farm houses, restored mansions, new colonials and capes, mobile homes, old capes, old-ish little square one-story houses, etc.. There is no "standard" look. I am relieved by all this because 1.) I don't need to stress over my house looking "perfect," but 2.) when we do sell, I think I can pretty easily set my house apart by having fairly neutral wall colors, minimizing clutter, and putting some stuff in storage. I don't need to go wild with staging, but a little should go a long way. I have been worried, though, that a whole generation of buyers expects their houses to look just like HGTV houses. But, if that's what they expect, that's not what they're getting around here, so I can breathe easy... my house already looks a million times better than many of the houses I see for sale in my area.

There are websites for bad (but legitimate) MLS photos, and on one of these site has been, beyond the usual clutter, people sitting in the photos, open bags of garbage, a reflection of the person taking the picture in her underwear(?), and finally, a vibrator sitting on the bathroom sink, anatomically correct but exaggerated, perhaps. (With this last one, was the photographer so blind or did they dislike the client so much that they left it there?)

Too much clutter around the room, books on tables everywhere, along with 3 or more other pieces. Too much furniture in a room that you have to turn sideways to get around or can only get to the sofa from one side. I never get inspiration from most magazines, especially house beautiful, and those types because when you live in the real world with pets you never have a "house beautiful." It's impossible to have vases of flowers on side tables. Anyone with an active cat can attest to that. The rooms are covered in fabrics that are impractical, etc. That's why I don't subscribe to any magazines. I glance then they are recycled. A total waste of my money. I much prefer looking at the homes of real people who have style, good taste, and pets. That's when I get inspired. I enjoy houses like the post by the lady with the vintage, antique, reused items for her kitchen remodel. Now that's real life and inspirational for me. When her kitchen is finished it definitely should be featured in a magazine.

"I understand wanting to down-to-earth solutions to everyday problems in a forum like this [...]

However, do you really want to see ordinary living rooms and bedrooms in a magazine you pay money for? [...] why wouldn't I want to see the design at its purest without all the distractions?

[...]

I also realize that lamps have cords [...]but again, it's getting rid of a distraction."

Yes and no to your comments. I would agree that in general, you are correct. The clutter of everyday life, as well as its obverse (the lack of interesting items in a room -- ever notice photos of a house showing the same books in different rooms?) would surely make it difficult to enjoy the articles and photos.

However, the point I was trying to make is that everyday items, like lamp cords or garbage cans or whatever, are elements in a room. If you are looking at an article in a house magazine, then the way the home owner or, more likely, the designer or decorator has dealt with those items can be both enlightening and interesting. If these magazines can have articles showing the lastest whatevers available on the market, and those whatevers include a set of sponges, for example (as in the latest issue of a magazine I have here), then everyday items can and have been considered from a design standpoint. If the sponges are beautiful objects in and of themselves, then they should work in a room shot for a full-length article in the magazine. I wouldn't want to see a kitchen with sponges and with a garbage can and with pot holders and with X...and with Y...and so on, but I would sometimes like to see some of those items.

I like keeping my house clean and magazine worthy. But more than being picture ready, neatness and order give me personal serenity and joy.
It's why I make the bed in the morning. But, it goes in cycles. When dh is home, evenings, weekends and holidays, I don't care as much. But when Monday comes around, I am cleaning and putting everything back in place and picking up his junk dropped wherever.

On Sunday afternoons we might read the newspaper and I make a nice lunch,. Everything is not "camera ready". But late in the day, the paper is recycled, lunch is cleaned up and everything looks fresh again. Until dinner. So between 4 and 7 I might be able to take a picture unless dh makes a snack or I am baking.

Sorry! that got posted on the wrong thread!