Advanced Cabinet Hanging
Or, how to almost break your neck hanging a cabinet all by yourself that weighs a ton.
I painted the cabinet and I was eager to get it on the wall because it was laying in the middle of the room and really in the way. This cabinet weighs a freakin’ ton. It is only 3.5X3.5 feet square and a foot deep, but I had to replace the back and I used 7/8-inch thick T&G fir boards (think beadboard without the bead). They came out of the rental addition. The original back was 3/8-inch think T&G slats.
When you do a lot of things by yourself you need to be creative at times. I laid boards on the floor against the opposing wall. I then leaned boards against the hanging wall and braced them against the boards on the floor. Now all I had to do was get the cabinet up on the ladder 5-feet in to the air and rest it on the boards. Easier said than done.
Then, while I held it with one hand I could level it with the other. When it was level I could drill pilot holes and drive in the stainless steel screws. You can start to see that I ran out of hands in step two or three. To make it even more fun, because the room is so small I couldn’t put both leaning boards in place because one of them blocked my access to the ladder. So I had to get it on to one board and then grab the other board and maneuver it underneath the cabinet.
So I leaned one board against the wall and climbed up on the ladder with the cabinet. I then dropped the drill, of course, and climbed back down the ladder with the cabinet. This is the part where I almost broke my neck, or some other part of my body. As I shimmied down off the ladder something shifted – me, the ladder, or the cabinet, I’m not sure which - and all three of us almost ended up in a heap on the floor. It was one of those moments where in seconds your deodorant fails and you feel like you need to change your socks, and maybe even your underwear.
At the time my big concern was the cabinet. I would hate to see that thing in splinters on the floor. Not to mention what it would do to the floor and maybe even the walls. Eventually I got it up and it ain’t going anywhere. I was concerned that the fixed shelves might be too close together, but as you can see in the picture the laundry room essentials fit fine.
Tomorrow I will paint the doors and replace the one piece of broken glass. Maybe get them hung by Friday. The whole thing needs another coat of paint after that. Then, this weekend it’s on to the floors!
7 comments:
What happened to the pictures? They're not showing up on my computer.
"windsweptsoftware.com expired on 04/04/2008 and is pending renewal or deletion."
This is what I get when I try to see your pictures on this post.
Back on topic, I'm glad you and the cabinet survived! You really should quit doing those stuntman ladder tricks, though.
I am glad everything turned out OK and the cabinet is up. Alas, I could not see the pictures for some reason.
That is really irritating. The email address I used to set up the domain 5 years ago got on to every spammers list known to man. When I got to about 300 spam emails a day I had to shut it down. This was about 3 years ago. I didn’t delete the mailbox, I just set the available space down to the minimum size. Once it filled up, which took about a day, everything else got bounced. Well, I never told Network Solutions my new email address and so their warnings about my renewal never got to me. I was surprised as anyone to find out the site was down. I renewed it for another 5 years today and it should be back up soon.
Hello fellow Eurekan! I stumbled across your blog Tuesday and have read what seems like 200 of your entries. We were neighbors for a time, I was at 9th and N, but moved out of the neighborhood two years ago. We purchased a 1914 home on West Avenue. It's going to take a while but we are really hoping to give this home back it's soul. Thanks for all the information, humor and inspiration. Oh yea...and thanks for not killing yourself, that would have SUCKED!
One more note, have you been to the Humboldt Room at HSU to research past inhabitants? I was able to follow directories from 1916 and have found at least 42 different families (with names, occupations, etc.)have lived in this home!
I did that move with a window last fall. Somehow neglected to think about the way ladder was moving AWAY from the window, and as I climbed it, I moved AWAY from the window. So I leaned out a bit, lost my balance, window fell to the floor, leg went through window, end of window.
Could have died right there on a piece of jagged glass. Cats were terrified with my yelling about the window. Brand new glass, too.
Well howdy neighbor! Wow, 9th and N, what are the odds. If you start your own House Blog you should go to Houseblogs.net and register to get on the blog roll there. You will be the 3rd Humboldt County blog on HouseBlogs.net. The other one is out in Blue Lake.
No, I haven't made it to the HSU Humboldt Room, but I have spent countless hours in the County Library Humboldt room. They have city directories going back to 1898 and before. They also have all of the files used to compile the book, Eureka: An Architectural Review. Even if your house didn't make the book there still may be a file on it. There is also the Statton (?) papers which have a wealth of information, but it is almost too much at times. Lots of tidbits about nothing. You can go crazy in that room. I've got to make it top HSU, though. I'm still looking for an old photo of the house.
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