Renovations in the kitchen of Smith-Adams Hall have been completed after a fire caused by smoke bombs last month.
The fire occurred Oct. 15 when Sean Branchaw, sophomore finance and math major from Derwood, Md., was in the kitchen making smoke bombs. Two fire trucks responded to the call around 11 p.m. and residents were forced to evacuate when the fire alarms went off as smoke was spreading from the kitchen.
The renovations included painting a back wall, repairing the ceiling, buffing out damage on the cabinets and restaining them, replacing portions of the Formica and purchasing and replacing the vent-a-hood and the stove/oven, said Angela Neal, area coordinator of Smith-Adams and Barret Halls.
The whole process took about three weeks, Neal said. The paperwork and estimation process took about two-and-a-half weeks, while the repairs were fixed in a one-week period.
Along with the repairs, students now have a brand new stove/oven and an extra microwave in the vent-a-hood to use in the shared kitchen.
During the day, residents were discouraged from coming down and cooking while the workers were repairing the damage, but at night the workers would clean up the best that they could so students could use the kitchen as normally as possible since the only thing that wasn’t repaired was the stove/oven, said Neal.
“I think our facilities management crew did an incredible job bringing it back up to standard and making it look nice as quickly as they could,” Neal said.
Kim Panther, sophomore animal science major from Southlake, said she enjoys the renovations.
“From what I’ve noticed, I like the kitchen renovations,” Panther said. “Our old oven was pretty janky, and I’m convinced it hated me. The new oven is really nice and actually bakes things in a timely manner. I’m not sure why we need two microwaves though.”