The Latest On The Book: a house log

We have dropped a few mentions of working on the book lately, so we figured it was about time for another post about the process. Our post two months ago mostly covered the journey to getting the book deal and the beginning stages of writing, but now we are truly in the weeds of things so there is certainly more to share… and we do not have to use pics of Burger to illustrate it this time! Sorry Burger.

At the time of our last book post two months back, we had turned in our 160-ish page completed outline and were beginning to coordinate the design process with our publisher. If you recall, the book is a compilation of 250-some ideas for “how to show your home some enjoy” (everything from small art projects, little tweaks, and swift ideas to bigger makeovers involving paint & furniture). Things were trotting along nicely and our publisher, Artisan, was trying to figure out whether to keep our Fall 2012 release date or hold off until Spring of 2013. Sherry and I begged for the earlier date and they agreed – but it meant putting the pedal to the metal. So we buckled our seat belts…

• In a matter of two weeks (the two weeks that happened to fall over Christmas and New Year’s) we had to turn our wrapped up outline into a fully written book. Yikes. But we put our heads down and two dizzying weeks later we had the manuscript done. Phew.
• When we turned the manuscript in to our publisher, she took the next week to read the whole thing and we braced ourselves for edits or rewrites.
• She wrapped up without any major edits (truly?!) so it went off to a copy editor – someone who would read it for nitty gritty stuff like grammar and punctuation. It spent a week or so there before coming back to us.

• As you saw in last Monday’s post, this baby arrived last Saturday as a hard copy. Our manuscript now officially lives as a printed document that has our publisher’s edits and the copy editor’s notes marked up in distinct colored pencils. Our task was to use our designated blue pencil (they included it in the FedEx box) to respond to any questions, agree (or disagree with) all edits, and make any final changes. Scary. Especially because as a single-spaced, single-sided document it is 375 pages long. We thought it was truly funny because we assumed it would all be done via email, so getting a giant chunk of paper overnighted to our house felt sort of official and old-fashioned, but that is apparently how it is still done these days! It is in fact a lot easier to absorb the info and catch errors while “truly” reading it (as opposed to reading it off of a computer screen) so it ended up being truly helpful.

• Once again, we hunkered down and plowed through. It was due back to the publisher by yesterday so we overnighted it to them on Saturday afternoon. Bless Sherry for having the focus to sit down for two days straight and do fairly much nothing but focus on that. It is how she spent all of last weekend while I watched Clara (and did kitchen stuff while the bean napped).

• After 16+ hours (broken up over two days) simply to read through the thing, we then scrambled to fill in some gaps and rewrite some sections simply to further explain a few projects/ideas in the remaining four days. Then back to the publisher it went…

But the manuscript is only half of the book process adventure right now. It is likely less than half, in fact. Perhaps a third? Because what is truly keeping us busy is prepping for the photo shoots that began yesterday morning. So here is what is been going down on that end of things:

• With the 250-ish ideas we are including, about 100 are going to be photographed. Another 100 will be illustrated and the remaining ones are fairly self-explanatory pointers that make sense without an image. So that means 100 of the projects/sets need to be done so we have something to in fact photograph. Can we say yikes again? Anyone with a journal knows that churning out sufficient projects to keep things interesting (perhaps 3-4 a week?) is a fairly substantial task. But completing 100 secret projects on top of that? Crazytown. But things are truly exciting and lively in Crazytown so we totally cannot complain. Or sleep. But sleep is so 2011. At least that is what we have been telling ourselves as we whirl through projects into the early morning. At least we got to knock out a bunch of them leading up to the shoots, so some are already waiting in the wings to be shot.

• We did not truly start full force on all of the projects until after the manuscript was turned in for the first time after New Year’s (we did not want to do a project that we or the publisher chose to later kill for some reason – but we did churn out a bunch that we knew would stay in). Not doing them all with a lot of lead time beforehand did mean that for those remaining projects, we did only have about 30 days to do them. Eeks. So on fairly much any night over the past month you could find us painting, hanging, sewing, cutting, and shopping for up to five projects. And that pace will continue for the next three weeks until shooting wraps (since many things have to get shot as “before” and “process” pics before being completed). But it is lively because we are transforming some fairly ugly things, like this old rusted thrift store table:

• As much work as it is been, we are not doing it fully alone. Our publisher hired a producer to assist keep things organized (100 ideas does not simply mean 100 photos, since many have a before, process, and after shots attached to them – so it is a lot to keep straight and schedule). We also have someone who has been a big assist when it comes to gathering supplies for us. Sometimes it is faster for us to simply grab things while we are out and sometimes we email her and say “ahhhh, can you assist us get blank by such and such a date so we can sand and paint it in time to shoot it? Thanks!”
• And of course we have a pro photographer who is going to make everything look prettier than we ever possibly could with our little Nikon. So our “crew” of helpers are not exactly elves who do all the projects at night (we wish!) but it certainly takes a load off to have such a strong team. Since we are ultimately the people who have to choose all of the items, do all of the projects, decide what rooms/corners to shoot all of the photos, and style all of the shots, we are still burning the midnight oil.
• As for where things for the book are coming from, we have a fairly modest book budget so we have been stalking craigslist, thrift stores, and even borrowing items from some of our go-to stores with their blessing (they’ll be returned in three weeks when shooting wraps). The pleasant thing about a modest budget is that it keeps us honest (there are a good amount of under $50, under $25, under $5, and even some free projects in our book, so that is fairly exciting to low-cost-os like us). And yes, sometimes Sherry gets hyper when we are picking out accessories (our aim is to style things so they look fresh for you folks, since reusing all the things we already have around our house that you’ve seen a million times would be kind of stale).

• And our house? Well, it is a mess. we have projects at mid-completion here and there (we need to save some that are halfway done to shoot progress photos, so we cannot simply knock them all out at once). we have tons of thrifted furniture piled in the sunroom simply waiting for a makeover. There are a bunch of fabric and frames and accessories stacked on the dining table. Paint cans pepper the floor. We even have frames missing from the hallway where we have repurposd them for book projects. Nothing is sacred. Haha. Again, in a word, it is a mess. But it is fairly exciting chaos.

• Being the over-sharers that we are, we’d enjoy to tell all of the details of every project right now (#ohmanit’skillingus). But I am not sure our publisher would be quite glad with us ruining the surprise. So here are a few hint-y sneak peeks:

• Our guestroom has kinda become home to all of the completed projects. The dining room is home to all of the things in progress and the sunroom is where we are housing all of the things we cannot touch until before photos are taken. Here is sort of what they look like (well, as much as we can show ya)…

• So that thing that Sherry mentioned at the end of yesterday’s post that lasts three weeks is some fairly crazy-but-exciting book photography. Most of it will be going on from 8:30am to 6pm four days per week for the next three weeks, so nearly our whole February will be spent on a photography set. Well, in fact the set is our house for the most part – so it’ll be three weeks of being in our house-turned-photo-studio. We finish simply a few days before flying out to Oregon for the Portland Home & Garden Show, so it will certainly be a jam-packed month. Thank goodness it is only 29 days long!

• Yes, we are fairly much hosting a little crew of people in our house for the better part of a month so we will have to tell you how that goes! They are all awesomesauce so far, and yesterday we banged out a ton of before photos and as soon as they left we were painting and upholstering and doing all the things we can now do since those “before” shots are in the can. Gotta tell ya, it feels good to get this thing going – and we already cannot wait for the book to be out so we can spill the beans about all these secrets. We are taking plenty of behind the scenes photos to share with you folks this fall when it comes out!

Update: Plenty of folks are asking what we will be doing with all those secret projects/items once the book is shot. We are in fact hoping to do a charity auction/giveaway with some of them (not sure how shipping will work though) and some items have to be returned, etc. Perhaps one or two especially sentimental ones will stay at our house, but they are all “bonus” projects (we did not “design” any of them to fit into our house, which is in fact truly freeing since we can have lively with plenty of color/fabric/textures, etc) so it should be lively to see where they end up!

So our apologies to anyone who left a comment yesterday and took a little longer than normal to see it pop up or get a response! We are certainly juggling things over here when it comes to keeping the journal and the book (and the bean) attended to. And as nuts as the next month is going to be for us, we are so grateful for the opportunity and so excited to share the whole crazy journey with you folks as we go. Anyone else dealing with someone visiting them for weeks on end? Or keeping 100+ secrets that are slowly burning a hole through their brains? Tell us about it. Or simply tell us how crazy our house looks. Go.

Psst- Thank goodness our bean sleeps the night away so we can get stuff done (check out her technique over on the house Life).