I decided to make my room the best Pi Kapp room in existence. I had to celebrate my newfound freedom and unity in brotherhood with the most over-the-top room that I could possibly think of.
First things first was the window. I thought to myself, what would be the most outrageous thing to put in my dorm room? And then I realized: a stained glass window. I needed to make a stained glass window for my dorm room. But I had never made a stained glass window before. So, I watched youtube videos and did a bit of reading. I went into the stained glass window shop and explained to the woman that I would make this beautiful window, and she told me that it would be a complete disaster. She said I needed to take lessons from her, or it would be a disaster. But, I only had during Christmas break to make this window. So I told her “I don’t have time so give me the supplies and I will build my window.” So I got started. I finished it in 4 weeks, which is unheard of. I worked sometimes over 12 hours a day. And I was interrupted halfway because I had a tonsillectomy and septoplasty, but I was in a time crunch, so I kept working. I then built a frame for the window that would fit perfectly into my dorm room window. And after transporting it all the way from Tennessee to my school in VA, it slid into the opening perfectly. I showed the photo of the finished masterpiece to the stained glass window lady at the shop, and she was so stunned that she offered me an internship that summer, which I took.
The symbolism of the window is really cool. I wanted the colors to be vibrant like those at Saint-Chapelle. In the upper left, you have a moon that is waning. In the upper right, you have a sun that is facing east. So, the moon is getting smaller and the sun is rising. The night is ending and the day is dawning. It is a very optimistic piece, and that is because I was a new brother in Pi Kappa Phi and was finally able to live in the housing with my brothers, after escaping the housing honors scheme.
I also made my own paddle with gold leaf gilding and did the same to the letters on my wall. I didn’t know how to apply gold leaf, so I learned how to do that online too. I also made my own paddle since I knew no one else would, and I made it match my room theme: Gold.
I had never installed crown molding before either, but I knew this was the next step. So I took measurements of every wall and angle in my room, cut the wood with a miter saw, and painted a healthy dose of gold on each strip.
The room also includes an 8ft red area rug, a framed $100,000 bill, gold frames for my papyrus from Egypt and mirror, gold deer head, dart board, gold paddle, Himalayan salt lamp, to name a few.
All this to say, there is no limit to what you want to do. You can achieve anything you want to. In the words of Ronald Reagan, “There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.”
(Via Chapter News Submission / LetUsKnow [at] pikapp.org)