Since our last meeting with Bit Space I spent time recruiting eighth grade students that wanted to spend their weekend helping me build all the furniture for our new space.

In the end I had over 20 staff members, students, and their parents that were willing to donate their time to this project. We also had three gentleman from Bit Space that trained us how to use all of the tools. 

We partnered with a wonderful company called Bit Space to help us design and build furniture for our Maker Space.

Our initial meeting was a brainstorming meeting. We spent the time going over the space and discussing how to best utilize the area we had. Bit Space took lots of measurements and shared some wonderful ideas on how to finish off this space. 

During our second meeting Bit Space brought with them some beautiful renderings. These pictures included our space with different furniture layouts. They went over the various ideas and we came to a consensus of what would work best. 

Our third meeting involved their final renderings of the space and the plan of how to make this happen. 

The project began in the summer of 2016. It is time to reflect back to see how far we have come in just six months. 

Now that everything was purchased, picked up, and in the room it was time for our wonderful volunteers to begin installing the flooring. We had three gentleman donate their time, energy, and expertise to this project. They worked so efficiently and finished the job in about three days. The final product was beautiful. 

My husband and I headed to the burbs on a snowy December Sunday morning to look at flooring. We ended up at Floor and Decor in Skokie. I found myself traveling up and down the rows touching each and every sample. I was looking for something that was smooth and could easily be cleaned. The number of options left my head spinning. I ended up speaking with one of their employees to help me narrow down my choices. Candy was amazing, she helped me pick something that was on sale, good for classroom use, and waterproof! Thirty minutes later I was on my way out the door with exactly what I wanted and how much it would cost to finish our room. 

On Monday morning I showed my principal what I found and how much it would cost. He was happy with the choice and told me that I could move forward. 

The following weekend I headed back to Floor and Decor and made my purchase. If I was to do it again, I would have called ahead and pre-ordered everything. I was able to pick up all the flooring, however, I had to order the stair nose and corner round for the two stairs we have in the room. Sadly they told me it would take about two or three weeks for that to arrive. I could have it shipped to school, but I decided to save the money and pick it up myself. 

A couple weeks passed and the stair nose and corner round were ready for pickup. I made my third and final trip to Floor and Decor to pick up the last of the flooring. It was the week before Winter Break and all supplies were in school ready to go for January when the floor would be installed.