Completion!

Titles are great, aren't they? This one pretty much sums up what I am feeling right now. After much turmoil and sweat, I can proudly announce that we are the new owners of a bookshelf, and newly completed china cabinet. Whew! That feels good to say. I was beginning to think it would never happen. I was beginning to think it would never come to fruition.

Glen and I ran into a few snags putting the hinges on the doors and then putting the doors on the cabinet. First, when hammering the cup hinges into place, I think that jarring (or something else unforeseen) caused some of the MDF doors to separate a little bit. It is only noticeable to Glen and myself, but it is still there nonetheless. What is MDF, you might be asking? Well, that stands for Medium Density Fiberboard. It is basically a strong cardboard that is poured into a mold and contains a lot of glue to hold it together. It doesn't really hold up to sanding very well, but lots of cabinet doors are made from this. Come to find out, it doesn't really paint all that well either. I had lots of trouble painting the primer coat onto these doors. It kept wanting to clump up. Therefore, I had to spend over 5 hours one Saturday morning sanding all of the lumps down, so that the two final coats would be smooth. They are not as smooth as the shelves, but they are pretty darn good.

Next, we hit a snag when we were putting the doors up onto the actual cabinet. This was all happening this past Sunday evening. As I would hold the door up, Glen would screw the hinge into the cabinet. We did not pre-drill these holes, as we should have. I heard this splitting noise, and cringed. We looked, and the board we were drilling into had split some. This is a common occurrence when not making a small pre-drilled hole first. We just decided not to wait to get a drill bit. We finished putting up the doors that evening.

That is where Glen's part in this ended (except for the use of his drill, that I have been using a good bit recently.).

The next day, Monday (Columbus Day), I proceeded to put the knobs in the doors. If you have tuned into recent posts here at Photographer's Ponderings, you know that I put it up for a vote about which knob to use. Well, Rebecca won out and we went with the larger, darker ones. They have kind of an antiqued copper look. I am glad we chose those, because they look fantastic on the doors.

I thought that I would be able to finish the final touches that day, but was unable to do so. I still had to put up two racks to house the crystal stemware, and 12 hooks to hold the cups. I got one of the racks installed (centered in front of the glass door, for maximum coverage, of course), but did not go any further, because I needed some more input from my lovely wife. I could not decide whether to put both crystal racks in one set of doors, or split them up and do half hooks with cups, and half rack for crystal. Ultimately, we decided we liked the uniformity of having both racks in the same "cabinet," and all cups in the same "cabinet."

Just when we thought we were done with any possible problems, the wooden racks that we bought to house the plates, bowls, saucers, and salad plates were coming apart. We got these from "Crate & Barrel." They were shipped flat, and then you just put the dowels together. Well, they were not staying together on their own, so we put a few drops of Wood Glue borrowed from my favorite sister, and my only one. The glue did the trick. The next day, we checked on them and they were staying together.

Finally, we brushed off the shelves, put up all of the racks, and set all of the appropriate china on them. I know, this was a rather long winded version, but I thought someone might want to read about some of the final stages of this grandiose project. Hope you enjoyed it, and hope you enjoy the cabinet pictures. Believe me, it is much more impressive in person.

My thanks to: Glen, Carla, Brian, Rebecca, Dad and whomever else I borrowed ideas, time or tools from. It catches my eye every time I walk through the room.