Day 2 of Seattle Adventures

Day two was really the day of adventures thanks to our directionally challenged group in our car. We started the day by getting lost on our way to Chown Hardwear in Bellevue. Once we found our way though we realized it was definitely worth it. The store was FULL of bathroom and kitchen fixtures and appliances, from faucets and sinks to toilets with bidets to drawer handles shaped like people. We were given a walk through of bathroom fixtures to help us with our upcoming bathroom project. I found some awesome ideas for it, as well as a few things I wanted for myself, like this tub.

We moved on next to Pental, a granite and marble showroom. This proved to be a lot more interesting than I expected because I'm currently taking a Geology class. I didn't think it would pertain to design all that much until I visited here. Everything she explained to us about their rock slabs were things I had learned in class! Actually seeing the huge slabs in person was really cool. They looked so much better than the small little samples we have in our materials room. I fell in love with a conglomerate granite called Jurassic Green.

Our next stop was 3 Form Lighting. I can't even begin to explain how much this show room inspired me. I found all of their work so intriguing. It was intricate yet simplistic. And the feel of the work space was so casual. I could tell it was an environment that encouraged imagination, especially thanks to the giant rainbow table they worked on. 3 Form is probably my favorite stop on the trip and I'm really interested in looking into a possible summer internship. 




The final stop of the day was the Daltile showroom. We got a brief overview of the company and were then let loose to roam the samples. Our bathroom project will be entered into a competition Daltile puts on so this was an important stop. We must use Daltile tiles in our bathroom, so we had to find what samples we were interested in using. I found some really neat river rock pebbles that were sliced to be flat that work perfectly with my concept.

Day two was long but very hands on so it was a fun day. I learned SO much about some of the main materials we use in designing. Being able to explore the show rooms and samples was a great way to give us experience with the materials.

Day 1 of Seattle Adventures

Our studio class was given the awesome opportunity take a field trip to Seattle for 4 days touring showrooms and even doing a job shadow.
The first day there we toured the Seattle Design Center. I had no idea what to expect because I had never heard of it. But once we got there I was in awe. Basically the design center is a giant mall for Interior Designers. There show rooms after show rooms with everything from custom furniture, rugs, to paint and fabric samples. I was overwhelmed with excitement and probably could have spent all day there.
We started at Trammell Gange. There you could find any customizable piece of furniture you could think of. Say you like the arms of one couch but the legs of another, and wanted to use a different fabric all together. No sweat! I was amazed.
We also toured a rug show room where some of the rugs were as much $28,000! And a wall coverings show room that had some really interesting materials like a velvety fabric for the wall.
The final show room we visited was Robert Allen. They were really welcoming with cookies, lemonade, and gift bags. They explained their fabric selection which was HUGE. I'm pretty sure you could find absolutely anything there. Sherwin Williams, the paint company, is a part of their show room as well so we also talked with their rep. She gave us our first paint wheels and gave us some important tips to remember when choosing paints.

Overall it was a long, but eye opening day. We learned so much about the materials and products available to just designers. My excitement throughout the day proved how much I love interior design. (And the garbage bags of samples a select few of us scored for hanging around after our class left may have helped too!)

Habitat For Humanity

A few weeks ago I was given the opportunity to work on a Habitat for Humanity house in Uniontown, a small town about half an hour south of Pullman. I've always heard of Habit for Humanity but never knew how or where to get involved, so I was quite excited when it was part of our curriculum for our Materials class.
Once we got to the site we were assigned different jobs and mine was insulation. I was really interested in it at first because we recently had our insulation redone on my house and I was curious about the process. But I quickly learned why the guys who did ours wore head to toe protection. Within 5-10 minutes my arms were itching like crazy, and they're starting to now just thinking about it. In addition to the itching it started getting stuck in my contacts. So my tip for you, DON'T WEAR CONTACTS IF YOU'RE WORKING ON INSULATION. Luckily I had contact solution with me so I got them all cleaned out and moved on to our next project.
Our next task was to clean out the rooms and screw down the floors. They were only held down with nails and lots of them were not along the cross beams. We went through and found the ones that weren't and added screws for extra strength. Easy right? Well, not as much for a group of girls with limited drill experience. We got our drilling lesson, but it took quite a few tries, and one bleeding finger, to really get the hang of it. But once we did we flew through it and finished early.
The experience was great because we got to work hands on with materials we had learned about in class. I am so glad I got the opportunity to work with Habitat for Humanity and I really hope and can work with them again in the future!

Wheelchair Adventure

One of the most interesting, and challenging, assignments we've had this year was our wheelchair assign. We were assigned a list of things to do, and we had to do all of them while in a wheelchair. At first I thought it would be a piece of cake, but it definitely wasn't. The first task already proved a challenge since I didn't know where the elevator was to get to the lower floor, and once I found it I had trouble turning myself around inside it.
Everyday tasks like opening doors and getting from one building to the next were much, much harder. If a door didn't have wheelchair accessibility, like the Architecture Library, I had to maneuver around it pulling the door while trying to simultaneously moving the wheelchair out of the way. Not an easy task.

 
And I learned how much I take my legs for advantage when we had to make our way from Daggy to Carpenter Hall. My usual path was way to steep to safely roll down so we went on a bit of an adventure to find an alternative route. The path we found was manageable at first, but about halfway there the sidewalk had be torn out and replaced with gravel! I had no choice but to use my legs to scoot myself along. If I hadn't have had use of my legs I would have been stuck.

This assignment proved a lot more worthwhile than I first expected. I learned how much harder everyday tasks become simply by being confined to a wheelchair. I have so much appreciation for people who must deal with this everyday now.