Weekend Trading Spaces with Lori!

This weekend, my best friend from high school came up to visit. We had a girls' weekend because Brian was in Atlanta taking a scuba certification course. We played trading spaces and did all kinds of painting projects, the biggest being painting our bedroom.

The room is now burnt orange...actually "earth tone," such a boring name considering how many fun names there are for paint. The wall hanging and pillow covers, as well as the shams and blanket at the bottom of the bed, are from India. My sister brought them back for us. It was really difficult to make everything work together. It still isn't finished, because I am going to change the curtains and we have picked out a bedspread that we will pick up Friday. I'm going to try and pull out more of the aqua from the wall hanging instead of the browns. It is dark and unique, but I like that it was pieced together with my sister's interesting elements from her life in India.

We also tackled some smaller projects like painting the hood above our stove. It has transformed from the harvest gold ugliness seen in the photo, to a really cool hammered metal. That was Lori's idea. I matched a few other things in the kitchen to it.

We crackle painted my bedside table, using a cool copper base coat, and painted a little dresser for our guest room black and did what they call "Shabby Chique" technique to it. When that room is finished, I'll give an updated photo.