the whole wide world

We have lived in our house almost a year.

One year.  One entire year of painting, cleaning, rearranging, sickness, organizing, tossing, cleaning, sickness, researching, purchasing, cleaning, playing, sickness......

I think you get the idea.

In that year I've spent my time mostly nursing my sick kids trying to figure out what direction I'm going in my home.  It seems crazy that I'm just now getting to most of the big projects.  But alas, such is life with 3 small kiddos.  *grin*

All that said, here we go.  We put the whole wide world on our living room wall.  Yep.  We sure did.

First I found a map I liked.

My kids were more thrilled with the tube it came in.  And the fact that, sawed into 3 pieces, it made awesome swords.

At first I wanted to either use open back ready frames from Hobby Lobby OR custom frames.  But I couldn't ju$tify that.  I had no clue if we would like the fini$hed outcome or not.....so I went with the po$ter frame$ from Hob Lob and $aved a BUNDLE.

First we hung the frames.  Just to get an idea.  Everything could still be returned if we hated it!

Wow.  The frames look black in that picture.  They're not.

Have you seen all the different frame options?  I had no idea there were so many options in the poster frames!  And they had the EXACT dimensions we needed. 

It was a HUGE map. 
I needed six frames.
The math about killed my brain.

We spread out the map on the hardwood floor.  I ended up taking out the plywood piece of our train table to put under the map as I cut.

My man sat on the template (or rather the backing of the frame) as I used the rotary cutter to cut.

4 hours a divorce attorney and a marriage counselor later we had the world at our fingertips.  ha.

Ready for the finished product???? 

Please ignore the pillows.  And the reflection of the TV.  Funny.  And seriously, if you have seen fun, cute pillows lately, hook me up.  I'm having the hardest time finding exactly what I want!  GRRRRR!!!!

By the way, this picture was taken BEFORE my man lowered all the pictures.  Enter the aforesaid marriage counselor.  Apparently when I said "you always hang stuff too high, babe" it didn't sink in the first time.  Ahem.

I heard Bubba tell his friend today that this map was the whole world.  His friend was equally impressed.  Funny.  I have globes throughout my entire house that I use for decor.....does he not realize the globe is also the whole world?  hmmmm.....

It doesn't look as big in these pictures, but it's a honkin' big map.  73x48, to be exact.  I hate that I still know that.

So what do you think?  Not that I care.  Did I do ok on staying traditional for my man in his man cave?  I didn't get too freaky-deaky did I?  Traditional is beatiful.  It just isn't my style.  Hence the main reason I couldn't ju$tify $pending an arm & a leg for wall decor.  My last house....well, I have very expensive pieces that are now in my attic, garage, and about to be removed from the walls of this house.  I just didn't want to do that again.  Ridiculous.

I'm still working on this room.  Still lots to be done.  But I'm ready to move on to the family room.  Cuz that's all mine.  Expect color...and lots of it.    Just in case you don't know me very well....... *wink*