When Kim later shared proofs from our photo session, I found myself drawn to one image in particular – a photo of our girls, side by side, in the backyard grass. The picture’s vibrant pink, green and black tones seemed like a perfect fit for the playroom, and I knew instantly it would make a wonderful addition to our home.

Flash forward to Christmas break…

In keeping with my resolution to get organized (making our house a more comfortable and enjoyable place), we finally hung the new photos in the playroom — transforming the space from a cute but somewhat generic-looking room, into one that our daughters can truly call their own.

images of the girls personalize their play space

Now if only I could find a rug to tie everything together…

Suggestions anyone?

Here are the pictures we have up in the dining room. The one on the left is a section of Portland skyline at night, and the one on the right is of the crane sculptures at the Portland Japanese Garden:

Portland skyline as seen from grain elevators

Crane sculptures at Portland Japanese Gardens

Here are the pictures in the living room. All four are from the Japanese Garden.

Portland Japanese Garden pictures

Since the pictures are hard to make out in the room shots, if you are curious, here are the actual pictures that we used:

We selected copper-foiled Tiffany-style stained glass shades from Rejuvenation for our living room sconces, box beam fixtures and dining room chandelier.

In our kitchen, we used five Arts and Crafts style pendant fixtures from Progress Lighting. (To tie the fixtures together with the rest of the room, we installed matching carmel-swirled glass panels in the cabinets flanking our refrigerator.)

For our ground floor bathroom, we chose sconces and overhead lighting from Schoolhouse Electric

In our front entry hall, we used another stained glass fixture from Rejuvenation which incorporated all of our paint colors from the entry hall, living room and dining room, which really helps tie the ground floor together.

The floors in this house are continuous through the entire downstairs, even into the closets. That means that you have to do all of it at once to keep it looking right, as there are no transitions between rooms.

We opted to have them refinished without a stain, because we thought that the lighter color would help offset the dark woodwork. In the end, we feel that we made the right choice.

1) Don’t take apart the box beams. When we did this for the living room, we came up with the much better method of drilling all the way up into the joist cavity and just feeding the wires through to the attic spaces upstairs.

2) Don’t permit work like this. This was the first time we ever got a building permit, and we came to regret it. The inspector was unhappy that the wires came through holes in the wood and did not terminate in a box. While I definitely believe that building codes are a good thing, there are times where the letter of the law conflicts with something that would still be safe. Obviously, very little in an old house would meet code, so any remodeling is an exercise in finding the right compromise between codes and aesthetics.

After a lot of effort, we were able to solve the problem by buying the smallest possible “pancake” boxes and painting them to match the beam stain. We were fortunate that the 3 1/2″ size was very close to the diameter of the fixtures bases, so they basically act as spacers between the fixture and the beam. If you didn’t know to look for them, you’d never notice them.