My New Room

I've been majorly slacking in the Blog department.  For some reason I just really haven't had the motivation.

This past weekend was Homecoming at GT as well as the House Dedication ceremony, which kept me plenty busy in the days leading up to this weekend.  Both days went really well.  I gave lots of house tours and had so many people tell me "You look so young to be a house mother."

But the main purpose of this post is to show off my room!

Alison vs Ikea

So, in the past 2-3 weeks I've had many battles with Ikea furniture.

I remember going to the showroom and everything looked so awesome.  HA President went and ordered everything and it was delivered to the house.  I think the fact that I didn't play a part in the ordering aided in the shock that occurred when I saw the 13 boxes in the TV room, outside my suite.  However, I forgot to take a picture of it all before I moved things around.  I was also under the impression that everything you needed to assemble the furniture was included in the box.  Boy, was I wrong.

Everything was delivered on Friday.  An alumna and I decided to tackle my headboard first.

Headboard?

This is as far as we got before we realized that we needed screwdrivers.  This is also when I realized that the headboard had to be mounted to the wall.  Not a pleasant surprise.

I tried assembling some chairs, but one of the holes wasn't drilled all the way through.  Thats when I gave up and decided to go to bed (back at WestMar).

The walls are actually tan, not lime green.

Saturday was a new day, and I was determined to get more of my furniture assembled.  After I got the chapter tool box the chairs were the first order of business.

My first Ikea success!

I tried to do some more work on the headboard, but I thought I had put it together backwards, since the unfinished edges were facing upwards.  Little did I know that I had, indeed, done it correctly, but I was just looking at the wall side of the headboard.  I also found out that taking apart Ikea furniture is extremely difficult.

The unfinished edge that cause a panic!

After some more work on the headboard, I got to the point where I couldn't do any more before it was wall mounted.  So, I decided to work on my table, thinking "Its a table.  How hard can it be?"

How can a table be this complicated?

I found that it was fairly difficult.  Especially when the pieces are dark wood, which makes it hard to see all the holes.

Lesson: If you do not notice every little detail in their instructions you will end up putting your table together wrong.

How far I got before I had to take it all apart ant start over.

Notice those little cut outs on the unfinished wood?  Yeah, those are supposed to be on the bottom, not the top.  So, I pretty much had to start completely over.  But, I finally got it all put together!

Success!

My bed took the longest, by far.  HA President's husband helped me.  It wasn't very difficult, just very tedious.

Mid-assembly

Bed fully assembled

Bed and headboard

Monday I tackled the dresser, all on my own.  Other than completely destroying one of the holes with a tiny screw and putting the drawer tracks on upside down, I did a pretty good job.

I thought I did everything right...

But then the drawers wouldn't go in.  Took a while to realize that the tracks were upside down.

Finished product

My bookcase was one of the most frustrating only because of the insanely tiny nails.

Before the cardboard backing, when I thought everything was going ok.

1.  Levitating nails?  2.  27 of them?  Really?

To put the nails in perspective.

I could barely hold the nails in my fingers to hammer them into place.  And I have pretty small hands.

Successful bookcase

Somewhere in those days I also assembled a couch.

Half assembled couch with the de-assembled table in the background.

Thats not right...

There we go.

Some of my next posts will include "Decorating my Room" and "My Desk Adventure"

The Chaos of a New House

So, I've fallen off the blogging train for a while.  But I have good reasoning for it.  We finally moved into the house!  And then I went to Michigan for 5 days.

I thought that move-in weekend was going to be hectic and chaotic.  But it sort of just ran itself.  I assembled Ikea furniture all weekend and everything was fine.  Well, no, assembling Ikea furniture was not fine, but thats for another post.

The Friday night of move-in weekend the girls brought small things over and also had their big-little reveal!  The littles get one end of a string and have to follow it through the house to find their bigs.  Its adorable and crazy.  My furniture was also delivered that day, and I found out that you do need your own tools to assemble everything.

Standing in the front doorway, the house tangled in string!

Saturday of move-in weekend the PODS were unloaded and officers brought over their things.  It was a lot of organizing by alumnae and Exec officers.  I was just happy to get a toolbox so I could start assembling furniture.  I also got checked out of the hell-hole that is WestMar Student Lofts.  One of the best moments of my time here so far.  Saturday night was my first night in the house, but I didn't get to sleep until the furniture delivery people left at 11 pm.  What they were doing still assembling furniture at 11 pm is beyond me.  All I had was a mattress on the floor and windows with no curtains.  Needless to say, it was NOT my best nights sleep.

Sunday the architects brought us bagels and orange juice.  Honey Almond Cream Cheese from Einstein Brothers is the BEST thing ever.  I'm seriously considering going and buying some this weekend.  We ate breakfast and then I resumed assembling furniture.  HA President's husband helped me assemble my bed and headboard.  Having an actual bed for my second night was wonderful.

Monday was the first real day in the house.  It was also the first day of Meal Plan.  Casey, our chef is wonderful and everything he cooks has been delicious so far.  My first 4 days of "work" basically consisted of trying to assemble more furniture and getting interrupted by maintenance people who needed to be escorted through the house.  It was busy but worth it when Friday rolled around.

Friday morning I got to go to Michigan!  I left at 6 to head to the MARTA station to take the rail/train/subway thing to the airport.  I ended up being about 2 hours early to the airport.  After some delays I finally landed in Flint where Jim picked me up.  I got to see a ton of AGD sisters, Zeta brothers and sisters, the Kiltie Marching Band, Kim, Kyle and Bambi, Matt, Jim's parents and of course Jim.  The worst part of the trip was catching the "Alma Plague" that everyone in Alma seemed to be sick with.  I got the worst of it on Tuesday when I was about to travel back to Atlanta.  Traveling while having a cold is horrible, but at least the two seats next to me on the plane were empty and I could spread out a bit.

The past two days I've just been recovering from my cold.  My parents and Emily also visited me yesterday, after they were done in Charleston, SC.  It was great to see them and they absolutely loved the house.

Today I got my "desk" mounted to the wall as well as 1 of my 2 sets of curtains hung.  I spent the afternoon just organizing and decorating my room.  Lovely.

Initiations is tonight!  YAY to the 44 new members of Alpha Gamma Delta.

The Best News Ever!

So, I had a meeting with house people yesterday and we get to move into the house this weekend!!!!

Home sweet home!

Frustrations

So, the house is still making good progress.  The fire inspection happens today, HVAC was yesterday and today, health inspection tomorrow.  I would feel a lot better about the progress if we knew when the elevator inspection was happening.

Tomorrow the chapter gets to see the house in its 99.9% finished state (minus the furniture).  I'm glad they're getting to see it.  Hopefully it will make them feel better.  I feel like they felt that the house wasn't close to being finished, when in reality it was just inspections that we are waiting on.

I can't wait to move in and start organizing and decorating my room.  The past 6 days I've literally done nothing.  I have zero motivation to do anything.  I have found that I am more motivated when I have other people around me.  A variety in food is also something that I am looking forward to.  I also really miss cooking and baking, something I don't have the money or tools to do in this sorry excuse for an apartment.

In nicer news: Less than 2 weeks until I'm going back to Michigan!