(c) 2009 Lydia Hinshaw
Reason to remodel the kitchen?ORMOND BEACH, FL -- Here in the land of the endless summer it is once again too hot to go camping this weekend.
A good thing too, since we suffered a failure of kitchen-drawer hardware last week. The plastic brackets that support the back ends of the drawer slides broke, most likely a consequence of Prince Charming's decision to store batteries in the silverware drawer. Here in the land of hurricanes, we're obsessive about batteries, and since we haven't had a storm this year, our stockpiles remain heavy.
Anyhow, I didn't figure this was a big deal. You go to the home improvement store, pick up new brackets for a couple of bucks, and then install them with the help of a phillips screwdriver and some colorful language (due to the inconvenient location of the necessary repair.)
Silly me, I didn't realize that since I last fixed a drawer, the definition of "standard" has changed in the drawer-hardware universe. They don't make brackets this size anymore. The ones they do make are a couple of millimeters smaller, just enough so that my older style drawer-slides won't fit.
Back to the home improvement store for new drawer slides, which come in sets, four lengths of metal, two for each side of the drawer, two more to be screwed to the front and back of the cabinet. We took the actual drawer along to make sure we got the right sliders.
Of course, I had failed to notice that in my kitchen, the cabinet is a couple of inches deeper than the drawer, therefore the strips of metal that attach to the cabinet need to be longer.
Back to the store for another set of slides in the longer length. Not possible to buy a short two and a longer two -- have to buy two full sets and, I suppose, just throw away the four unneeded items.
Thankfully, all this solved the problem, though not without the unpleasantness of working with my shoulders wedged into a cabinet opening 13 inches wide, twisting a screwdriver at arm's length.
The last time I did this, my eyesight was better. Now I'm unable to get myself far enough into the cabinet to bring my bifocals to bear on the tiny screws, so I had to do a lot of this by feel.
The drawer now works, but we will not be storing batteries in it anymore and we're paring down the silverware too. We are also going to have to be vigilant about on how much weight we put into, by my count, six other drawers in the kitchen and bathroom that all use hardware that is irreplaceable.
The Prince and I, either alone or separately, made no less than five visits to home-repair/hardware stores and spent about $22 acquiring the parts to make this simple fix that required one trip and less than $3 the last time I did it.
I guess when something minor breaks in the kitchen, hardware manufacturers figure you'll just gut the place and remodel.
A good thing too, since we suffered a failure of kitchen-drawer hardware last week. The plastic brackets that support the back ends of the drawer slides broke, most likely a consequence of Prince Charming's decision to store batteries in the silverware drawer. Here in the land of hurricanes, we're obsessive about batteries, and since we haven't had a storm this year, our stockpiles remain heavy.
Anyhow, I didn't figure this was a big deal. You go to the home improvement store, pick up new brackets for a couple of bucks, and then install them with the help of a phillips screwdriver and some colorful language (due to the inconvenient location of the necessary repair.)
Silly me, I didn't realize that since I last fixed a drawer, the definition of "standard" has changed in the drawer-hardware universe. They don't make brackets this size anymore. The ones they do make are a couple of millimeters smaller, just enough so that my older style drawer-slides won't fit.
Back to the home improvement store for new drawer slides, which come in sets, four lengths of metal, two for each side of the drawer, two more to be screwed to the front and back of the cabinet. We took the actual drawer along to make sure we got the right sliders.
Of course, I had failed to notice that in my kitchen, the cabinet is a couple of inches deeper than the drawer, therefore the strips of metal that attach to the cabinet need to be longer.
Back to the store for another set of slides in the longer length. Not possible to buy a short two and a longer two -- have to buy two full sets and, I suppose, just throw away the four unneeded items.
Thankfully, all this solved the problem, though not without the unpleasantness of working with my shoulders wedged into a cabinet opening 13 inches wide, twisting a screwdriver at arm's length.
The last time I did this, my eyesight was better. Now I'm unable to get myself far enough into the cabinet to bring my bifocals to bear on the tiny screws, so I had to do a lot of this by feel.
The drawer now works, but we will not be storing batteries in it anymore and we're paring down the silverware too. We are also going to have to be vigilant about on how much weight we put into, by my count, six other drawers in the kitchen and bathroom that all use hardware that is irreplaceable.
The Prince and I, either alone or separately, made no less than five visits to home-repair/hardware stores and spent about $22 acquiring the parts to make this simple fix that required one trip and less than $3 the last time I did it.
I guess when something minor breaks in the kitchen, hardware manufacturers figure you'll just gut the place and remodel.
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