June in PR day 9

Today we tackled the cabinets upstairs. We’ve been trying to figure out the best way to get these cabinets on the wall. After putting them all together they’ve been sitting here for days waiting to be hung and it has taken lots of troubleshooting to finally figure out what to do to hang them. IKEA says to hang a rail all the way around the kitchen all leveled and then the cabinets are supposed to just hang on the rail so they can be secured that way. The problem we have is that, not only is our floor uneven, so is our wall. So hanging the railing didn’t do us much good because we found big gaps behind the cabinets or they would come unhooked from the rail because it would hit the wall in a weird corner. So we ended up removing the rail and decided to just try and secure the cabinet itself to the wall with large cement screws (which took some effort on its own). We found that we had to shorten some of the legs (which are meant to help level the cabinets as they are being hung) before we could continue because our floor slopes two inches from one end of the kitchen to the other. We also had to take a trip to the hardware store and buy some shims to fill the gap behind the cabinet where the top of the wall bowed out farther than the bottom of the wall. Once we figured out how to actually work around those small annoyances (ha) we actually got into a good groove. I laid on the floor and adjusted the legs according to what Josh saw on the level. Then we secured the shims, drilled a hole and finally screwed each unit in to the wall. Then attached those cabinets together where they came right up against another. It was long tedious work but we got done with one whole side today! I think tomorrow might be the magic day where it all gets finished! Crossing our fingers on that one…

Tonight we took a trip to Ralph’s for some ice cream. We felt like we needed something sweet as a reward for finishing half the cabinets today! There’s dust in the air this week as a wind current is bringing dust in from the Sahara Dessert. Pretty crazy to see it and it’s evident on all the surfaces in our house. Just a small layer of dust each night as we go to bed. But it sure makes for a cool sunset!