Sorority House Makeover

Earlier this year, Eden and I traveled to Iowa State to help 55 wonderful young ladies from Gamma Phil Beta update their sorority house. We helped them completely redo their library and their meeting room in just over 12 hours! While the rooms had great bones, they needed a more up to date look to better reflect the women who live there..

"Tooltorial" Time

We kicked off the day by pumping some rockin' music through the house to get the ladies in the right mind set. But because most of the ladies had never held a tool in their lives we had to begin with a little education . Each girl was handed a pink tool belt which was not only a big hit, it got everyone ready to learn how to use power tools. Within an hour those once scary looking drills, jigsaws, compound miter saws, reciprocating saws, and nail guns were like second nature.

It was so amazing watching this group use power tools for the first time. Seeing their fears of the unknown suddenly shift into a sense of confidence, fun and pride in their new found skills.-- and then teaching each other how to use them! A number of them even asked to keep the first pieces of wood they cut to show to their fathers and say, "I cut this!" After gaining a bit of confidence, they were raring to get started working on the sorority house.

Can you say demolition?

We jumped right in because we had a lot to do and not much time to do it in. In the meeting room we started with paint, while in the library we began with some demolition. Other teams of girls were busily cutting molding to attach on the walls, building storage units for the meeting room and making trophy cases for the library. Both rooms also needed new light fixtures as well as window treatments. We swapped out the fans in the library for a few new ones to update the room and still allow for great circulation.

Snack Time

Throughout the day we were grateful for the breaks (for pizza and warm cookies!) which gave us time to speak with the girls and see how they were doing. We loved how many came up to us to say how much fun they were having and how great the rooms were turning out. Though our favorite comments were from those who said they now felt more comfortable with the idea of owning a place of their own some day because they know that they can take care of it themselves.

Gearing Down

As the day wore on the ladies kept on working hard but we were all pretty tuckered out. They were all moving a bit slower and sitting down between projects (who could blame them, we'd been working straight through for close to 10 hours). But their energy was quickly renewed as the ladies began to congregate in the rooms where we were doing the finishing details. They simply couldn't resist being in the rooms they had created. It was the ultimate satisfaction.

We were all exhausted but it was Friday night and these gals certainly weren't going to let a day's worth of hard work prevent them from going out. The same girls who had been covered in paint and saw dust just a few moments earlier walked down the stairs looking great! As they left for the evening, each one took the time to walk through each room and see the finished product. It was a lot of fun to see the looks on their faces as we could see the sense of pride and self satisfaction wash over every one of them. More than a few called up their boyfriends and told them that they needed to come over and see what they had done!

Before leaving, we left each of these ladies with their first power tool -- a cordless drill of their very own. We knew this would be a great start to their own tool collection enabling them to work on their own homes because now they had the knowledge that they could do it themselves. It was great fun.

If all of the thank yous we received weren't enough, just a few weeks ago we received a letter from the sorority's corporate office, letting us know that they've decided to use the ladies' new found skills to help others. They are now looking to work with a group of women from an abused women's shelter to not only change where they live, but to help empower these women to know that they can take care of themselves.

So, to the ladies of Gamma Phi Beta at Iowa State, we hope you enjoy the new living space that each of you helped to create and always remember, you're now Janes through and through and can do whatever you dream possible.