Ram Down!: a house log

Remember our dear sweet never-hurt-a-fly Ramsey who watched over us in a not-creepy-at-all way when we slept?

He was a beloved member of our household and even inspired Burger to do yoga.

Well, Ramsey will be missed.

And yes, it totally felt like this tragedy of yore all over again.

Except John did not draw a depiction of the event…

… because it in fact was not John’s fault. But yes, yesterday we bid a fond farewell to our TJ Maxx find when he somehow popped off the wall in the kitchen where he was temporarily hanging for a book vignette above the fireplace. No one was even in the room to attempt to catch him on the way down. It pains me that he died alone. John’s even a little sad too. He was a good little ram. And we enjoyed sleeping under his all-knowing gaze quite much.

We were doing so well over the last three weeks of photo-shoot madness. A house full of cameras + people + equipment + secret projects + extra furniture/accessories is certainly like Catherine Zeta Jones trying to slither through those red lasers in that scene in Entrapment (you know the one). Except more lurchy and uncoordinated. Which is why it is no surprise that on our second to last day of shooting (yes, today is our quite last book shoot day after three full weeks of photography here at our casa!!!) Ramsey was our first casualty. Poor guy. What not-creepy-at-all ceramic animal will we hang over our bed now? We will simply have to wait and see who catches our eye. But for the time being, there is a hole in our hearts (and on our wall) for our dearly departed Ramsey.

Speaking of the end of our book shoots (can you believe our last book process post was three whole weeks ago?) we thought it would be lively to share a few pics from the last 21 insanely exhausting yet fully remarkable and exhilarating days of essentially turning this pile of paper…

… into a holy-cow-it is-real book that now simply needs to be laid out/designed, sent off to “the printer’s”, and will be available for preorder this summer and out this fall. Ahhhhhh. And you know this little ol’ journal is simply about whatever’s going on at our house (projects, broken ceramic animals, miscellaneous photography-related chaos), so we had to alert you to the latest (both in ram-related injuries and photography progress). As our shooting marathon draws to a close, we have shot over 2,000 photos (!!!) out of which 200-ish will make the final cut (we got plenty of angles and progress pics and variations of things, so for every ten shots that we took, we typically simply kept one). We even shot three distinct cover concepts yesterday – all of which we managed to worm our way out of (haha, we were so freaked out by the idea of seeing our smiling mugs on the cover of the book for years to come). They all came out truly strong – especially without our awkward faces in them – so we cannot wait to see which one they pick.

And you know over-sharers like us want to spill those pics and deets rightthissecond, but alas, we are not allowed (gotta save it for fall when the book is out). So without further ado: here is as much as we are permitted to divulge when it comes to the chaos that was our lives during these past three weeks. Um yeah, the playroom has secretly been painted about nine times. Not kidding.

Distinct parts of the room got distinct colors that we assigned to spotlight specific shots/projects/vignettes (so the whole book is not full of Moonshine and Sesame and the other few colors in our house). So yes, part of the reason we are tackling more Dude, Get On That Already challenges is certainly because all the items that used to live in the playroom have been offset into other rooms while we paint/shoot in there (the sunroom, guest room, our bedroom, and the dining room = crazytown). In keeping-it-real news, about four colors into it we got sick of repainting. Haha.

But oddly sufficient by about the eight and ninth ones it felt like second nature. Last night we even stenciled one wall for a special shot that we are taking this afternoon. Yowsa. What will we do with ourselves when we are not painting the playroom walls every few days after Clara goes to bed?

There was also gluing, taping, spray painting, dyeing, stenciling, staining, and a bunch of other secret Hands-on bid-ness going on. And we had to protect our hands for process shots throughout so we did not look – as Clara would say – “messy, messy, Mommy!” – hence all my dark nail polish as of late (to hide the grub under my nails) and John’s Dexter-ish rubber gloves.

Clara had a lot of lively checking things out (and yes, those are my snazzy spray painting clothes, complete with fuzzy red socks). The photographer’s name is Kip Dawkins and Clara enjoyed following him around squealing “Hi Kip! Hi Kip! Hi Kip!” on repeat (kind of like kids asking “are we there yet?” every two minutes on a road trip). By the end of week one she not only knew everyone’s name, she could identify their cars when they pulled into the driveway (“Marcie’s car! Kip’s car! Susan’s car!” was a normal morning refrain) and was surprisingly good about keeping a fairly safe distance while still enjoying all the action. We are so grateful this insanity did not fully wreck Clara’s life (and quite quite thankful for John’s parents, who snuck off with her whenever things got truly hairy). But she did amazingly well with so much “change” at home – in fact, I think she might ask where everyone went when they stop coming by every day.

Here is how we shot some of our pics to demonstrate how a few of our projects were done mid-process. The bigger ones got laid out on the floor and shot from further away. That white thing in the background is a “seamless” so the process shots look plain and uncluttered, while most of the after shots are things that we “styled in situation” – meaning they are somewhere in our house to give those photos some environment (ex: on a table/on the wall/in a room/near a window or door/outside/etc – but they’ll likely only look vaguely familiar as being in our house since so many things like furniture arrangements and wall colors and accessories have changed). Oh and the thing over us is a reflector to keep the lighting consistent throughout the book. I liked to pretend it was a sail and we were out in the tropics on a boat. I guess I am simply as guilty of daydreaming as Clara (who saw fishies here).

Burger was also fairly cool with all the new folks and extra stuff in our space. Look, here he is perching on disembodied Karl like it is no big deal. We worked him into the book like a champ. What is a YHL book without some quality Burger shots up in there?

It was at this moment about a week and a half into shooting when we realized that our house hadn’t looked this crazy since moving day. Yup, that is our guest bed in the corner of the living room. We carried that thing all over our house for distinct shots. It became kind of a game. Where can we put the bed next? The funny thing is that the bed shows how giant this room truly is. It is a gymnasium-sized room.

Here is that same guest bed up against the back of the fireplace, fully blocking traffic. That wrapped up book shot is in fact one of our go-tos. It was two projects in one being shown in that picture (neither of which are visible here of course). Oh man, is it fall yet? Cannot wait to show you folks.

Look, no more bed in the corner, but that is a drop leaf table back there. We had some dining scenes to shoot and since we have a giant round table we had to borrow a regular rectangular one from a local shop for the day to make normal shots easier to snag.

Oh and look, that is not our sofa! It is another borrowed-from-a-local-shop item that we used for a few vignettes. This sofa also shows how giant Karl the Sectional is (we have eight of those pics hanging above Karl, as contrasted with the three over this standard-sized sofa).

So to the crew who are practically like family after nearly a month of “living” with us: thanks for everything! And to you folks for bearing with us while we have juggled this and the kitchen redo and the bean and “the bug” that tore through our house earlier this week and all of our Portland prep (which means we were a little slower on comments from time to time): thanks for understanding! And to any and all varieties of dark chocolate: we could not have done it without you! Hey, when you do not drink coffee you have to grab a little zing of caffeine anywhere ya can.

Have you folks broken anything lately? Or fully turned your house upside down? Or gotten to know a group of total strangers over the course of a month to the point that you know their go-to music/food/color/quotes/movies? It is so crazy how much has happened since Christmas. Is anyone else still scratching their heads that it is mid-February? How did that happen?

Psst- You can check out our other three book-related posts over the last year here, here, and here.