The first thing on the list was painting the walls. I wish I had a "before" picture, but suffice to say that the walls were plain old concrete block painted white. We painted them a beautiful shade of lavender, then sponged over with a lighter shade and a darker shade. I love the result!

Well, I lied. Actually the first thing I did, earlier in the week, was to paint this lamp and give it a new shade. It used to be navy blue, and so was the shade. It's much prettier now! And doesn't it look great against those walls?.

The bedroom items came next. Diane made the comforter cover, and I painted the fronts of the drawers of the chest. One of my favorite things about the room now is the swag over the bed. As you can see, it has little white Christmas lights in it, and it's so pretty. (The white lump on the bed is Darcy, one of my cats.)

Next we moved on to upholstery. Ugh. Actually, it wasn't so bad, but it was very late when we got to this, and all we wanted to do was finish so we could go to bed! This beautiful fabric is some that Diane had given me when she moved back to Atlanta.

Candace painted the table teal on Saturday, and the next day I glazed it with lavender, then pressed a crumpled plastic dropcloth over it. I like the effect.

We ran out of upholstery fabric before we got to the second couch, so we just covered it with a comforter. Here you can see most of the sitting area. Not bad for free, huh?

The screen panel you see in the background was Sheri and Tara's contribution. Wish I had a picture of that work in progress....it sure was fun!

This is one of the panels of the room-divider screen. Diane painted this one. The idea is for all of my friends to paint on the panels, so that I can have part of them with me all the time. I'll paint one, too, but I haven't decided yet what mine will be.

We made the panels out of a canvas drop cloth, and they are hung over dowels suspended in o-hooks from the ceiling. Each panel has two sides, and both can be painted or left plain. Very simple, very inexpensive, but very effective. This is one of my favorite parts of the room.

My altar is another one of my favorite things. I have items on it to represent many of my favorite people and sources of strength, as well as the elements. Feeling connected to this energy has gotten me through some very tough times recently.

And that brings us to my other favorite thing: this dreamcatcher. This was made by Candace, and was a surprise gift. I had admired it at their home, and a few hours later, they showed up with it in hand! I love it, and I love the way it looks over my bed.

Yesterday (January 27), I finally got the nerve to pick up the brush and paint my panel of the room divider. Here is the result. I'm pretty happy with it, considering I'm no artist!