Picking the Paint (DIY Post #6)

the paint section at Home Depot

This morning I went to Applebee's to work a fundraiser for the FVHS swim team. As the hostess I got to talk to welcome all of the families to the restaurant, and thank them for their contributions. Soon after, I went to practice, and then the three of us - Makenna, Connor, and I went to lunch at Souplantation.

some of the many different colors
there were to choose from

After a busy morning, we headed over to Home Depot to pick out the paint color for the walls of our team room. When we got there, we realized that there were a ton of different colors to choose from - different shades, different sheens, and many other aspects of paint that we had never even heard of. We decided on a color called "Pool Party Blue," a product of the Glidden Paint Company. However, we didn't purchase anything because we weren't sure if the paint would be approved by the school.

I leave for Germany tomorrow, and I will be there for the next 10 days, so we won't be able to work on the project until I come back. Once all of us are back in town, we will purchase the paint and begin construction on the room.

Pitching the Project (DIY Post #5)

This week we had to work on presenting our project. While most of the groups presented on Friday, my group is going to have to present on Monday because Makenna, Connor and I were in Santa Barbara on Friday and Saturday for a swim meet. Since our presentation is only supposed to be 2 minutes long, we are planning on mainly improvising everything with some visuals playing in the background.

Originally our plan was to make a video that included our coaches, and quick interviews of our teammates to tell everyone the current terrible state of the team room. However, we did not have any time in Santa Barbara to record it, so we decided that we would just stand up in front of the class and give our presentation.

I was in charge of making the Google Presentation for the project, and I compiled a few pictures of the team room to put into the presentation. Each of us are going to speak about two slides.

Change of Plans (DIY Post #4)

If we're not going to replace the carpet,
we have to at least clean it.

This week my group decided that it wasn't going to be feasible to completely rip out the carpet of our team room. It would take too much time and resources for us to complete by the end of the school year - especially with all of our busy schedules.

Makenna and I decided that it would be better if we just steam cleaned the carpet so that it would be clean and sanitary. We are planning on doing it sometime in the next month - depending on how much time we will need and how much time we will have. We will need to create a schedule with deadlines so that we know what we have to accomplish by the given dates.

This week marked the beginning of our competition period of swim season, so we will have at least one swim meet per week from now until the second week in May. The varsity girls team crushed the Wilson girls by 20 points, and we claimed our first victory of the season. The next few months will be a busy time for all of us - with swimming, school, and AP tests to deal with, so hopefully we will have enough time to work on our DIY project.

Taking Stats (DIY Post #3)

Measuring

The stuffing falling out
of the couches.

The gross carpet

Yesterday, my group began laying out a more organized plan of what we were going to try and accomplish. One of the goals that we set out to do was try and figure out how we can redo the flooring of the team room. As we did some research on different flooring, we found that our options were limited, and began to question whether it was even feasible to rip out and replace the current carpet. It became clear that we were going to have to spend at least a couple hundred dollars on just the flooring. Taking that into consideration, we considered our options - fundraising & donations.

More stuffing oozing out of the couches.

More measuring

One dilapidated couch

However, another problem presented itself. We didn't know how many square feet the team room actually was, so Connor and I measured it today during our annual pentathlon. We found that it was about 16.5' by 15.25'. Based on that, we now know that our team room is 251.625 square feet - even bigger than we expected. Now that we have the measurements, we can figure out whether it's financially feasible to redo the carpeting.

I also took time today to document the way the team room currently looks in the form of pictures so that we could show "before" and "after" pictures of the room. It was the first time I had actually gone into the room and closely looked at all of its flaws. The stuffing falling out of the sofas looked really disgusting - even though it was just stuffing.