DIY Week 16

DIY Week 16

This Week:

This week we made major headway on the room! Finally!!! Yay!

Tuesday: We worked for almost an hour and a half to hang the white board back in the wall. It literally took a village to do it! Sarah and I couldn't do it alone, clearly. So in a matter of ten minutes we had several people from the swim team and half of the boys water polo team in the room directing us and telling us what to do (and criticizing how lame we were at doing construction work). We learned a lot about how to drill things in to walls. You need a drill bit...now i know what that is :) yay! DIY!

 Thursday: We finally got curtains up!!! They are navy blue with black curtain rods! It was much easier to put up since we knew how to put holes in the wall already from Tuesday. I have to say...the rooms looking pretty fancy :)

Friday: I brought all of the picture frames, that I painted black, back to the school. It was super hot in the room and we were afraid that the picture frames (that had to be taped onto the wall) would fall. So far so good...we will find out on Monday how they held up. Sarah and Connor also put the shelves back up with the projector.
Next Week:
Next week we will finish hanging pictures, vacuum the floor, and put the couch covers on the couches. We will stage the room and make sure it is looking spick and span for the big reveal on Wednesday!!!

DIY Week 15

DIY Week 15

This Week:

This week we were in the administration building about a thousand times because we needed to get the non-profit letter from the principle. I think that the secretary was a little bit irritated after we kept coming back in asking for the letter. She wasn't really informed on what we have been doing with the team room and why we wanted a non-profit letter. Finally, Friday morning we got a letter stating that we were a non-profit organization. However, Home Depot was only able to give us two $25 coupons. We are going to go to other stores to see if we can get more vouchers to help pay for the floor.

I seemed to be the design consultant for the project. Sarah and Connor went to Home Depot to get the vouchers and to Big Lots to buy curtains and rods. I couldn't make it because I was out of town with family but I was able to FaceTime in. We got black rods to match the picture frames and navy blue curtains. 

IM STRESSING OUT ABOUT FINISHING ON TIME

The flooring situation is not going to be able to be completed until after school gets out most likely. We also are going to have to tape up the pictures like before because we dont have enough studs underneath the walls to hang all of the pictures up. 

Biggest problem: our coach won't let us work during 6th period, everyone leaves after that, and we are all really busy

Next Week:

This next week is going to be on turbo speed to work on this project. The weekend is crazy busy for all three of us so it leaves this week to get the room ready. 

Tuesday: hang white board and curtains

Wednesday: Bring pictures and t.v. in

Thursday: hang pictures

Friday: clean, stage, make it look presentable

DIY Week 14

DIY Week 14

This Week:

This week was really fun for DIY! We brought over twenty pictures of all sizes, that were once on the wall of the team room, home to my house. I went over to home depot and bought black spray paint to turn the oak and extremely out dated picture frames into black, sleek, and modern. I laid clear painters tarp on my grass, taped newspaper around the glass, and got ready to spray. I did one picture but the frame turned out rough and really dusty with paint. It clearly wasn't looking too nice yet. I had to "adapt and overcome" this situation. 

I drove back over to home depot and bought semi-gloss black paint and brushes. I got home and laid down newspaper in the kitchen and once again prepared to paint. I sanded each frame to make the paint stick first. Then, I painted the first four frames really quickly! It was really fun and sort of relaxing. However, after about seventeen frames I began to dread doing this part of the project all alone. Four hours later, I was done and the picture frames looked fabulous! 

Picture frames drying in my living room

After I was done, I realized I had yet another rode block. I was looking at the pictures and realized that the most current pictures, that I am in, weren't painted. Those pictures either didn't have frames, or the glass broke from the frame. So, I had to buy five more black frames for these pictures. 

We also wrote a non-profit letter for Mr. Herzfeld to sign so that we could try to get a grant from Home Depot for the flooring and seating for the team room. We will find out in the next few weeks!

Next Week: 

Next week we will be able to clarify if we can get a grant from Home Depot on the flooring. If we can't, we will be steam cleaning. Also, we have to hang the pictures back up, the whiteboard, and get curtains. 

DIY Week 13

DIY Week 13

This Week:

This week I unfortunately was extremely busy with school (2 AP Exams), swim (CIF prelims and finals), and family (Mother's day). Because of all of these things, I didn't have time to go with Sarah to go to Home Depot and look at flooring, talk about getting it paid for by home depot, and negotiating. I know that we have to get a few coaches to fill out forms if we want to offset the cost of the flooring or else it will be around $300. It was good that she could go and look at what the next step will be. 

Since I couldn't make it, I researched online what the cheapest prices would be for couch covers, curtains, rods, and command strip hangers for pictures. It looks like our best bet will be Big Lots. Luckily we have one right down the street! Again, these things will cost money but I know that our coaches might donate and if we get the flooring paid for, then we will have extra money in our budget to buy these items. 

Big Lots!

Next Week:

Next week we will need to bring in the T.V., DVD player, and furniture we have so far. We can also buy the items from Big Lots, hang the pictures back up, put up curtains, re-hang the white board, and put a couch cover on the old couch. :) 

The hardest parts about the project so far are finding time on the weekends to take a chunk of time to work and having enough money to make it happen. 

DIY Week 12

DIY Week 12

This Week:

This past week Sarah, Connor and I all had Sunset League finals for swimming on both Wednesday and Friday. The boys placed third over all and the girls got second. It truly was an incredible meet and a day that I will always remember. Since we were so busy actually swimming and also studying due to AP tests the upcoming week, we didn't make any progress on the room. 

Sarah after our big win last Friday night in the 200 Medley Relay

Next Week:

Next week we will be calling flooring companies and trying to get someone to donate flooring to the room. Also, we will probably go to Big Lots and get a couch cover, curtain rods, and curtains for the windows. After all of that is completed, we will need to re-hang the pictures, white board, and shelves. Lastly, we will do the flooring; the room will be near completion except for a few design elements to spiff it up for the big reveal at the end. 

DIY Week 11

DIY Week 11

This Week:

This week was definitely my favorite week working on this project so far. This past Sunday, Sarah, Connor, and I all met to do the painting in the team room. First, we cleared out all of the couches, pictures, racks, and other miscellaneous items that we didn't want to get paint on. Connor and I both brought tarps and laid them out so that we didn't stain the carpet. We finished sanding the remaining spackle on the walls and then got to work painting. We did the job really quickly. We thought that the paint would need another coat but after it dried, it looked really good. It was such an improvement to the room! It looks much bigger now with the lighter and less drab color called Pool Party. 

After, we were instructed by our coaches to make the room livable again. Basically, that means that we had to put the couches back, remove any glass, nails, etc. that could potentially be a danger to someone in a bathing suit or with bare feet. 

We cleaned out the couches and were truly amazed at what was under/in them. We found forks, old 

speedos, money, and lots of food. It was sort of gross but it makes me happy to know that its a little bit cleaner. 

Blue Man Hands

This was a really fun day because we got to get messy and have fun all together. My clothes are covered in paint, my body was covered in paint; I would say it was a success. 

We also learned how to paint "correctly" from Connors mom. Do the edges first, then work inward and in a vertical direction. 

Next Week: 

We arent sure what we are going to do next. We have a few things on our checklist left:

- hanging pictures

- flooring

- couch

- bring entertainment cabinet and t.v.

- curtains

Something on this list will get done by the end of next weekend :) 

DIY Week 10

DIY Week 10

This Week: 

Spackling the wall

This week Sarah, Connor, and I made MAJOR progress with the team room. We all went Saturday morning and afternoon to paint the room. We brought lots of supplies, snacks, and other essentials to get the job done. Connor and I arrived first and lifted the couches out of the room. Then, we began to take the pictures off of the walls. We realized that we had a much bigger job to do than we thought. As we began to take the pictures off, some came off easily whereas others had to by pried off. One would think that pictures would be hung on a wall. However, these were taped with what seemed to be the stickies tape in the world. Some pictures had been up since the 80s and those were the hardest to get off. Some of the pictures even ripped of the wallpaper and some ripped off the wall, creating holes. 

Sarah's hole in the wall

The stubborn screw

After that, we had to patch up the millions of holes on the walls. I was the chief spacklerer. I had to spread the spackle into the hole without taking up more wall and scrape it to fill up the hole. Then, Sarah arrived and she began to sand down the dried spackle. In the mean time, Connor was trying to get the white board and cork boards out from being screwed into the wall. Once the tape was taken off the wall and it was sanded down and speckled, Sarah and I tried to help Connor. He had gotten the entire white board out except for one screw that it was hanging by. So, Sarah got up on the ladder and used a crow bar and go the white board's last screw out by yanking with all of her force. She created a giant hole that we

haven't decided what to do with yet... but we got the screw out so thats all
that matters.

We were quite tired because that had taken about 3.5 hours to do. We all had other things to do that day and we all knew that the paining wasn't going to get done. Therefore, we moved the mess into the middle of the room and we put off the painting until the next week. Sadly, we left the room in worse condition than before, but the walls are ready to be painted for sure!

Next Week: 

We will be painting the walls next saturday, selling the furniture at my garage sale, and cleaning the mess that we have created in the room. Hopefully the walls will be looking perfect in no time!