Saturday, March 13, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Final statistics
In completing the puzzle, we logged a lot of time. Here is the breakdown, computed in terms of both of us puzzling. So, to compute total man-hours, multiply each of these numbers by 2.
Sydney - 63.25 hours
NYC - 74.25 hours (by FAR the hardest quadrant)
San Francisco - 70 hours
Singapore - 56.75 hours (we kicked Singapore's ass)
Total hours spent puzzling (together) = 264.25
Total man-hours spent puzzling: 528.5
So, in real-life terms, if one person had a full-time, 40 hour a week job, this puzzle would have taken them just over 13 weeks of "work" to finish - that's roughly 3.25 months of non-stop, 8-5, M-F time. The fact that we held full-time jobs, let reasonably well-adjusted lives, took breaks, traveled, etc. and STILL got done in under 2 years is incredible to me.
Our favorite quadrants, in order:
1. Singapore. Purple was definitely cool. All we had learned from the prior 3 qudrants really gelled with Singapore. We knocked this one out of the park.
2. Sydney. This was our first qudrant, and was very special to us for that reason. We also really enjoyed the bridge in Sydney (which Eve worked on) and the sky, because those fireworks were really fun to put together (which was mostly Jen until Eve helped out once the bridge was done.)
3. San Francisco. This one took FOREVER because we took like 3 months off right in the middle of it. It actually sat on the dining room table for so long that the pieces faded, which meant that when we resumed the pieces we were adding didn't look like they were the right color until we realized what had happend. This one was rough - the water was awful, the sky was awful. But not as awful as...
4. New York. This was by far the hardest and most frustrating one. The black water was atrocious. The double Statue of Liberty sky was maddening. The buildings were nondescript and difficult.
We agreed that we are very lucky the quadrants ended up in the random order they did. If we had started with San Francisco or New York, we may have never finished. We're happy we got to end with our favorite qudrant, because it left a very good taste in our mouths.
Now, onward to the 24,000 piece puzzle that is now the World's Largest. We plan on starting this one in the fall of 2010. Can we finish in under 2 years? Time will tell!
Until then, thanks for staying with us through the amazing journey. There will be one final post once we get the entire thing assembled.
Sydney - 63.25 hours
NYC - 74.25 hours (by FAR the hardest quadrant)
San Francisco - 70 hours
Singapore - 56.75 hours (we kicked Singapore's ass)
Total hours spent puzzling (together) = 264.25
Total man-hours spent puzzling: 528.5
So, in real-life terms, if one person had a full-time, 40 hour a week job, this puzzle would have taken them just over 13 weeks of "work" to finish - that's roughly 3.25 months of non-stop, 8-5, M-F time. The fact that we held full-time jobs, let reasonably well-adjusted lives, took breaks, traveled, etc. and STILL got done in under 2 years is incredible to me.
Our favorite quadrants, in order:
1. Singapore. Purple was definitely cool. All we had learned from the prior 3 qudrants really gelled with Singapore. We knocked this one out of the park.
2. Sydney. This was our first qudrant, and was very special to us for that reason. We also really enjoyed the bridge in Sydney (which Eve worked on) and the sky, because those fireworks were really fun to put together (which was mostly Jen until Eve helped out once the bridge was done.)
3. San Francisco. This one took FOREVER because we took like 3 months off right in the middle of it. It actually sat on the dining room table for so long that the pieces faded, which meant that when we resumed the pieces we were adding didn't look like they were the right color until we realized what had happend. This one was rough - the water was awful, the sky was awful. But not as awful as...
4. New York. This was by far the hardest and most frustrating one. The black water was atrocious. The double Statue of Liberty sky was maddening. The buildings were nondescript and difficult.
We agreed that we are very lucky the quadrants ended up in the random order they did. If we had started with San Francisco or New York, we may have never finished. We're happy we got to end with our favorite qudrant, because it left a very good taste in our mouths.
Now, onward to the 24,000 piece puzzle that is now the World's Largest. We plan on starting this one in the fall of 2010. Can we finish in under 2 years? Time will tell!
Until then, thanks for staying with us through the amazing journey. There will be one final post once we get the entire thing assembled.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Faithful viewers, we are happy to announce that after a few short hours on the last all bluish-purple pieces, we are DONE WITH THE PUZZLE!!!!!
The last picture:
And some fun pictures of us just celebrating and having a great time:
We want to thank you for following our blog over the past 2 years as we've worked to put this puzzle together. We decided against moving the last quadrant to the basement to assemble the whole thing this evening, but we will be doing that very soon. Jen will also calculate how many hours it took us to put the puzzle together and post that as well.
For now, thanks for following us. We'll let you know when we start the next one!
~Jen and Eve.
The last picture:
And some fun pictures of us just celebrating and having a great time:
We want to thank you for following our blog over the past 2 years as we've worked to put this puzzle together. We decided against moving the last quadrant to the basement to assemble the whole thing this evening, but we will be doing that very soon. Jen will also calculate how many hours it took us to put the puzzle together and post that as well.
For now, thanks for following us. We'll let you know when we start the next one!
~Jen and Eve.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
A solo session by Jen. She managed to place all of the special pieces we had left!
Later that evening we managed to do some work together. The whole picture is finally finished!! Now to just place all the purple edge pieces, and we're done!
Later that evening we managed to do some work together. The whole picture is finally finished!! Now to just place all the purple edge pieces, and we're done!
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Friday, March 5, 2010
A solo session performed by eve since she's not working and Jen was at work. LOTS of progess in the upper left hand corner in the purple section!
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Eve's favorite date of the year, and what a special day it was! Our puzzling session was phenomenal. Sorry there's no video, but at least you can see our progress:
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
Only a 2 hour session in which eve wasn't feeling so hot. Not as much progress, but every placed piece helps!
Friday, February 26, 2010
Tuesday, February 24, 2010
A very distracted puzzle session. Check out the video, then we have some pictures for highlights:
This is eve literally rolling on the floor laughing:
The moped picture (it didn't turn out very well):
And finally, our progress:
This is eve literally rolling on the floor laughing:
The moped picture (it didn't turn out very well):
And finally, our progress:
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Saturday, February 20, 2010
A total of 9.5 hours were spent on the puzzle this weekend. Such progress was made! The buildings are done and the sky has now been started.
(For the record, we didn't win anything with our lotto tickets).
We also apologize we forgot to shine a light on our faces, resulting in the video being quite dark. We're still new at this whole video thing!
Here's a picture of the buildings completed:
And here's the last picture taken on Saturday:
(For the record, we didn't win anything with our lotto tickets).
We also apologize we forgot to shine a light on our faces, resulting in the video being quite dark. We're still new at this whole video thing!
Here's a picture of the buildings completed:
And here's the last picture taken on Saturday:
Friday, February 19, 2010
This past Friday we were in the middle of puzzling and decided we wanted a snack. We headed out and got ourselves a little cake. Here's a video:
Friday, February 12, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Massive progress on the buildings. Jen is still putting off starting the sky. To be fair, she's doing this for 2 reasons:
1. Eve's in her way with the buildings being spread out everywhere.
2. The sky is going to suck.
The buildings have been moved to their proper spot and put together a little bit more. We now have further completion on the "Diaper" and the "Frustratorium."
Yes...things can get quite odd at the puzzle table....
1. Eve's in her way with the buildings being spread out everywhere.
2. The sky is going to suck.
The buildings have been moved to their proper spot and put together a little bit more. We now have further completion on the "Diaper" and the "Frustratorium."
Yes...things can get quite odd at the puzzle table....
Friday, January 22, 2010
Sorry for the lag in posting pictures. The hard drive that captures our videos hasn't been working very well, so we're without video for the moment. At least there are still pictures to enjoy!!
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Sunday, January 10, 2010
I apologize for the wonky order of things. We didn't post the pictures from the beginning of the 4th quadrant! Eve (me) was the one lacking, so I offer my sincere apology for the delay. This is kind of a funny story...
Before we could start the 4th quadrant, we needed to get the puzzle mat back. The 3rd quadrant was still rolled up. Jen's kind of running out of room to store these quadrants, so she decided the best course of action would be to seal up the 3rd quadrant so it was easier to move around. This was also a test to see if our adhesive plan would work: to tape the back of the puzzle with packing tape instead of gluing the front. The amount of glue we'd need to glue the puzzle together would be a lot, not to mention expensive.
Here we see Jen sweeping off a slab of drywall. Our original plan was to sandwich the puzzle between 2 pieces of drywall and flip it on its face so we could tape the back together.
This is eve laying on the puzzle itself. Why? Well, she's doing this for 2 reasons.
1. Who doesn't want to say they've laid ON the puzzle?
2. I was attempting to flatten out the puzzle after we'd unrolled it.
After lifting one slab of drywall with difficulty, we realized we were NOT going to be able to sandwich the puzzle between two slabs due to the weight. With our puzzle ingenuity, we decided instead to sandwich the puzzle between 2 flattened cardboard boxes. Thankfully, the day before Jen and Tommy had purchased two large tvs and still had the boxes:
Here we are, praying that when we flip the puzzle it didn't fall apart completely.
SUCCESS!!! Here's the puzzle after we removed the top box and puzzle mat. Minimal crumpleage!
The tape idea worked perfectly. Here's the puzzle flipped back over after being completely taped:
Next up, puzzle table area before and after photos:
BEFORE
AFTER
The usual pile of pieces that mark the beginning of a new quadrant:
Finally, the picture from our first puzzle session. This was an AWESOME kick off session with visible progress! Jen got all the pieces sorted into their various bags and I managed to finish the boat in the picture already.
Will we manage to get this last quadrant done before we reach the 2 year mark? *fingers crossed* we hope so. We want to start on the next largest puzzle!!! Plus, Jen wants her dining room back.
Before we could start the 4th quadrant, we needed to get the puzzle mat back. The 3rd quadrant was still rolled up. Jen's kind of running out of room to store these quadrants, so she decided the best course of action would be to seal up the 3rd quadrant so it was easier to move around. This was also a test to see if our adhesive plan would work: to tape the back of the puzzle with packing tape instead of gluing the front. The amount of glue we'd need to glue the puzzle together would be a lot, not to mention expensive.
Here we see Jen sweeping off a slab of drywall. Our original plan was to sandwich the puzzle between 2 pieces of drywall and flip it on its face so we could tape the back together.
This is eve laying on the puzzle itself. Why? Well, she's doing this for 2 reasons.
1. Who doesn't want to say they've laid ON the puzzle?
2. I was attempting to flatten out the puzzle after we'd unrolled it.
After lifting one slab of drywall with difficulty, we realized we were NOT going to be able to sandwich the puzzle between two slabs due to the weight. With our puzzle ingenuity, we decided instead to sandwich the puzzle between 2 flattened cardboard boxes. Thankfully, the day before Jen and Tommy had purchased two large tvs and still had the boxes:
Here we are, praying that when we flip the puzzle it didn't fall apart completely.
SUCCESS!!! Here's the puzzle after we removed the top box and puzzle mat. Minimal crumpleage!
The tape idea worked perfectly. Here's the puzzle flipped back over after being completely taped:
Next up, puzzle table area before and after photos:
BEFORE
AFTER
The usual pile of pieces that mark the beginning of a new quadrant:
Finally, the picture from our first puzzle session. This was an AWESOME kick off session with visible progress! Jen got all the pieces sorted into their various bags and I managed to finish the boat in the picture already.
Will we manage to get this last quadrant done before we reach the 2 year mark? *fingers crossed* we hope so. We want to start on the next largest puzzle!!! Plus, Jen wants her dining room back.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Friday, January 15, 2010
The above video is the intro to our latest puzzling session since we lost our last recap. Below is our wrap up from our puzzling session. Pictures to follow!
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Monday, January 4, 2010
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