32,256 pieces, Ravensburger's New York City Window jigsaw puzzle measuring almost 18 feet long by 6 feet tall, featuring the view out of the 61st floor of the Rockefeller Center, New York, USA. There are 8 bags of approximately 4000 pieces. 

• Started- September 2019  

• Completed- December 2020  

• Duration- 16 Months  

• Hours-Over 600  

• Average hours per month- 40  

• Difficulty Level- High 

8 Bags  |  4,032 Pieces Per Bag  |  38" x 57"

Just looking at the number of pieces and the actual completed size of the Ravensburger 32000 piece New York City Window jigsaw puzzle is daunting enough. To actually assemble it and see it connect together into a mammoth image on the wall is a Puzzler's highest reward of achievement.

No heavy cup to lift over your head or a plaque to hang on your wall - only a very extreme level of accomplishment and some disbelief. As a matter of fact, six months down the road, if your still looking at it on the wall, you won't believe that you actually spent all that time and endless hours of staring at pieces that look the same either in shape form or colour shades. But you will still be thrilled with your accomplishment knowing that you did THAT!

I can tell you this. There were many many 'trying' hours. There were thoughts of 'impossible' and yes, thoughts of giving up. So, what is it about jigsaw puzzles that 'drive' a person to complete a massive beauty such as this NYC Window? I would have to say, for me, it's the end result vision on the wall. I have seen this one accomplished in the past and said to myself, "I want to see that one on my wall". Call it determination, sense of accomplishment or pure pride. Regardless of what the description is, you'll be beaming as other Puzzler's eyes gleam over your photos - well worth it indeed!

It was determined the only place in our home the entire puzzle would fit was in the corner wall of the living room. The idea would be to have the corner wall appear to have a New York City window view. It was also difficult to get the entire puzzle image into one camera shot but there it is, placed on the wall with all it's glory.

I am grateful for all the help I had while working on this project. My adult daughter helped put the pieces together with me. I can give her credit for about one-third of the entire project. She loved doing the sky area and it was determined she enjoyed large sections of similar colours.

My Husband is the muscle behind this project and it sure needed muscle many times so a special thanks to him for the many times the boards needed to be moved. His skills saved us from a few spills especially when it came to turning the puzzle over for taping.

Also, we used clear tacks to hold the 8 sections to the wall which can be very painful on the fingers since we used about 14 tacks per section. When we completed each section, we would turn it face down and use wide clear packing tape on the back and then tack it to a space on any random wall in the house. This gave us plenty of time to enjoy viewing each section.

Here's how we did it...

To give you an idea of the process, here's a brief explanation of how we did it. Maybe it will inspire you to try this as there is a simple technique that will speed up the process. But you won't know about that until later in the article. It's more about getting a good board that's big enough and strong enough to hold the pieces which also has an edge on it. More on that later too. Then, having the manpower when required once each of the eight bags is assembled. At some point, these massive assembled bags of puzzle pieces need to be moved somehow, so that needs to be considered very early on in the process.