In case you missed the announcement, Elsie and I are both working on a short-term rental property just outside Orlando, Florida (about 20 minutes from the parks). They both have a theme, and mine is inspired by Harry Potter with a bit of a modern take. You can see the living room tour here, which was the first space I shared from this project. Today, I wanted to share a little before and after, plus a tour of the kitchen.
You can rent this home on Air Bnb or HomeAway.
As you can see, we decided to have the same flooring from the living room flow throughout the kitchen and basically the entire first floor. It makes the home feel so much more cohesive and I just LOVE this flooring. We also changed the tile backsplash, painted the walls, and a few other minor things like changing out the light fixture.
There is a large dining room just on the other side of this kitchen (no door between) and that space has an eight-seat dining table. So I decided to swap out the kitchen islands to something that felt a little more like a work station, but with optional seating for hanging out while someone is cooking—that kind of thing. I love the feel!
A fun little letter board leads into the kitchen. Do you remember which book/movie this is from?
This kitchen was already very functional and I’m so happy that with a few changes it feels like a part of the whole house. There is a small pantry that also has a large trash can (I added an “Accio Trash” sign to the door. Ha.). And there is everything guests may need, including some Harry Potter-themed mugs. I really hope these don’t get broken, but I suppose we can always buy a few more if needed.
The kitchen is connected to a small hallway that has the laundry appliances. And this leads to the garage which we have turned into a game room/hang out area.
We simply painted the brick panel walls white and updated the ceiling fan—that’s it! We have a shuffleboard as well as a cornhole set which you could play in the garage or take out to the back porch pool area.
Thanks for letting me share! xo. Emma
Room Details: island table, stools, letter board from Home Goods, light fixture, runner, shuffleboard, cornhole game.
Hi, friends! Our A Color Story team has been hard at work to bring you (drumroll, please) 
One of the most exciting things about 4.0 is that we’re introducing a whole new section—Touch Tools! This feature allows you to use your finger to draw on the screen exactly where you want to make an adjustment. We have some really useful adjustments you can make using this tool, like brighten, darken, sharpen, and more. We know so many of our iOS users love selective edit, and we can’t wait to see what you think of touch tools! They’ll allow you to be SO much more specific about which parts of the image you’re adjusting.
When you update A Color Story, you will notice that we have a completely new look to the app. We’re so excited about this, and we think it will make your experience using it really seamless. We’ve rearranged some features and expanded the filters section of the app to be a little larger on your screen. And we’re SO excited that you can now zoom in on your photos within the app for extra fine-tune editing! If you’ve been a longtime user of A Color Story, you’ll recognize all the features you know and love have had a little makeover!
Speaking of new, we’re also introducing THREE new free filters to A Color Story 4.0! We’ve broken up the Essentials filter pack into two packs—now you’ll see Basics and Style, to help you easily find the type of filter you’re looking for. The new free filters are called Ocean, Happy Hour, and Film, and you’ll find them in the Style pack. Ocean has a warm, etherial vibe with overall light shadows and a rosy glow. Red undertones are present in Film, as well as that vintage look you get from—you guessed it—film! Happy Hour has a solid contrast with amber undertones.
Your saved presets and recent edits are easier to find than ever, and we hope you find this section to be useful! Some of you have reached out about wanting to preview your saved edits, and we are working to implement this now.
Supplies:
Once you get a general outline of where your outer rainbow band will be, you can play connect the dots with the tape and get your outer edge taped off. Depending on how many colors you want to use in your rainbow, you’ll need to decide how wide you want each rainbow stripe to be. 
I wanted my stripes 10″ wide, so I cut a 10″ piece of cardboard and then taped a very light pink colored pencil to the other side so I could trace a 10″ gap and know where to place the next strip of painter’s tape. I suggest using a very light colored pencil for this as I’ve had too many instances of using regular pencils for marking where it was difficult to cover over with my light colored paint. Use your width tracer and run the non-pencil side against the tape mark of your rainbow band so it creates another line 10″ away. Use your painter’s tape to tape just on the outside of the pencil mark so your marks will be painted over and hidden. 
It can be a little difficult to make an arch with straight painter’s tape, so I would either suggest cutting a piece of tape down the middle so it’s a lot thinner (and easier to bend into an arch shape) or you can make some cuts into the outside edge of the tape to about the halfway mark so you can bend the tape to your line more easily.
Once you get your first section taped off, you’ll want to take the main color of your wall (white in my case) and paint some of that color paint all along the edges of your rainbow band where the tape meets the rainbow. It may seem like an unnecessary step, but using the wall color where the tape seam hits will actually give you the cleanest line of your rainbow color when you go to take the tape off! Basically, if there is going to be any paint bleed on the tape line, the bleed will be the wall color and so it will disappear into the wall when you go to take the tape off. Believe me, I’ve done it without this step in the past and I’ll never skip it again! It works really well.
Once your wall color is dry, paint your rainbow band color onto the stripe with as many coats as you need (with adequate dry time in between). Once your paint is dry, you can peel off the tape and your first stripe is done!
Repeat by taping off the outer edge of the next layer and then using your cardboard width tracer to show you where the next tape line should be. Tape your second line, paint with your wall color along the edges, and fill with your main color. Repeat until each layer of your rainbow is done.
You are welcome to measure out precisely the space between each rainbow band so they are all perfectly spaced, or you can just eyeball it like I did. I’d say it came out really cute without having to spend a lot of time trying to make it all perfect. 
Light Fixture / 
I love that this is a relatively easy statement wall (mostly a lot of waiting between coats), but it turned out SO CUTE and I adore it. It makes me so happy to pass by the wall every day now and being in that room feels so much more joyful than it did before. One thing I decided on before starting the wall is that I would be OK with an imperfect rainbow shape, so I will say that also helps the process go a little faster if you aren’t measuring every arc and curve to perfection. Also, feel free to complete your corner rainbow in whatever colors you want to fit your decor! I almost did this in an all neutral scheme (like tans and camels), buuuuuut I missed the pink too much so I had to add some in—whatever works for you! xo. 
I had been thinking of refreshing my guest room for the past few years. When you last saw it, 
I LOVE this wallpaper!
I found this woven piece at a flea market and it’s one of my favorite vintage finds in a long time.
Our guest book is getting so full. I just checked and the first entry is from 2014 … still going strong. And below we still do 
My rainbow weaving 
Happy Monday! It’s our last episode of 2019 and we want to say the BIGGEST thank you! 2019 was such a fulfilling year for us and we’re so glad we finally took the leap to start this podcast. Thank you to the over 500 of you who have taken the time to leave us a review! We appreciate you!