A little over a week ago, myself along with seventy Real Simple staffers, family, and friends put aside Saturday plans and piled onto two school buses bound for Brooklyn. The destination? P.S. 346 an elementary school that sits on the tip of Canarsie Brooklyn. The troop of volunteer took part in New York Cares Day, a city wide day of community service. We were armed with an arsenal of new furniture, design inspiration, and volunteer spirits. 

The room that I had a chance to help transform was code named "The Aspire Room". It is a multi-purpose space that is used for many things ranging from PTA meetings to student mediation sessions. Before we arrived the space was overloaded with brochures, broken furniture, and a cramped kitchenette that housed a refrigerator that had not be opened in SEVEN YEARS! The room was painted and cleared out in preparation of our arrival.

With only five hours to work with a twenty seven pieces of Ikea furniture to assemble--we had our hands full, but miraculously we pulled off an complete room overall. By the end of the day we were able to transform six space throughout the school--the Aspire Room, the library, and four amazing wall murals (that were sketched out my hand by one of Real Simple's very own art department members). Here are a few pictures from the day.

Have you used your design inspiration to give back to the community?

Team Real Simple getting to work on the furniture assembly

One of four wall murals created in the school corridors

The completely revamped Aspire Room