Wednesday, August 17, 2005

START Workshop

Well, I moved into my big-girl apartment this weekend and officially began my MBA on Monday with the first day of START workshop. START is an intensive week-long seminar where we meet everyone, get all the administrative stuff finished, and do our first project. Today we had about 35 employers come for our first networking luncheon and it was really overwhelming to have to start thinking about jobs and internships already. I've met a lot of neat people (including prospective employers) and am really having fun, but we are super busy, so I am just exhausted. Tonight is the first time I've been home before 10 pm this entire week. I promise I will post pictures and things eventually - hopefully things will slow down a bit once classes actually start.

Sunday, August 07, 2005

Just call me Bob Villa!

I am trying to furnish my new apartment that I'm moving into this Saturday and have been looking for ideas for different pieces for a while. On the night that Lindsey, Ashley, and I had our fun Hip Pocket Theater experience, we stopped by Ashley's house to look up directions and on the way out, I saw it. Ashley has a coffee table that is made out of an old door. I knew it was what I wanted.

So yesterday, my mom and I headed out to this store on Montgomery that has hundreds of old doors for really cheap. We went through all of them and found a door that was fairly narrow and a little shorter than normal. It was really old and had a lot of character, so we bought it. Now in my mind, I'm thinking, "Great! We take the door, scrape off some old paint, put on some new paint, screw on some legs, and we're done!" Little did I know, there were a lot of steps I left out of this thought.

Once we got to Home Depot, we realized that neither one of us knows the first thing about making a table, so we went and got my dad to help us. As soon as he entered Home Depot, or as I like to call it, "Playground for Men," he started piling our basket full of things I didn't even know existed! We got paint stripper, a scraper, a stripping brush, black paint, primer, sand paper, wooden legs, all-thread screws that are half wood screws/half normal threads, special paint rollers, paint pans, the list goes on. My cute, simple table is quickly turning into a project fit for Pottery Barn pricing. But my dad knows what he's talking about, so we get our supplies and head home.

We put on paint stripper and scraped it twice, sanded it, cut off half the door, attached legs, and primed it. Tomorrow I am going to paint it. It took me about 6 hours to get the door into a somewhat workable coffee table, but it was definitely worth it. I can't wait to see it in my new living room hopefully looking as cute as Ashley's next week. I took some before and after pictures, but I have to wait until tomorrow before I can get them on my computer, so I'll post them then.

It feels good to have a really neat piece of furniture and know that I made it. But now I can't get my mind off of the door. I wonder how old it is, what it was a door to, who used it, what kind of drama happened in its presence. I know I'll never know its true back-story, so I'll just have to make one up. So for now, my story is that it was the door to a secret passageway in a Southern plantation house that was used in the underground railroad. Anyone else have a suggestion?