Kitchen Duty

There was a problem, and it had seriously backed things up throughout the kitchen. The upper cupboards were pulling apart, amazing they hadn't already failed under a load of nice but quite heavy dinner wear. Serving for fifty. Had to unload the cupboards completely, and part of the larger problem was that there were a whole lot more dishes and mugs, clean and ready to be put away. All the flat surfaces were covered. The dishwasher was full of the wine glasses that could be washed that way, but there were also four cases of champagne flutes that needed to be washed by hand (baby bottle washer, TR's recommendation). All the other debris from the wine-tasting is still around, jumbled in boxes and on the big cart. There isn't room to move. The ladies are preoccupied with Pegi's Xmas program So D and I tackled it today. D brought two four-foot clamps. The problem is in the middle of the cupboards where they've pulled apart almost three-quarters of an inch. We put a 2x4 on top, to spread the pressure, and crank it back together, then measure what we need, a leg that will span the entire depth. We know we can scrounge anything we would need, from somewhere in the museum. We talk about it, examine the sub-strate behind the wall; we're on the same page, which is not unusual for us. Decide we need flat flanges of 1x4 on the back and top, so we can make the necessary attachment; build the little unit, check the fit empirically, get a first coat of paint on it and go to lunch. Solving problems is so rewarding: saving money is incidental, but part of the algorithm. After lunch D gets a second coat of paint on the leg-brace thing. Waiting for that to dry he became a dervish and we put things away, for a couple of hours, then we installed the unit and put more things away. Close of day, the kitchen is retsored. Crazy, really, the way we blow things off.