When The Kitchen Cabinets Need A Shave

Should we call it home improvement? I'm not sure.
'Member when our fridge 'just died'? (Digression: I'm beginning to wonder if I shouldn't have a whole page over there in my side bar to track the machines in my orbit that have 'just died'. It sometimes feels like there's an epidemic of machine death in my world!)
'Member how we had to wait a whole WEEK to get the new one? Saturday seemed like it would never get here! Then the delivery guy called and gave us an early delivery time. Yes! The Fridgerator Gods see that we have done our penance and smile upon us.
Or not. You see, back when we were looking online, reading consumer reports, and comparison shopping for such a ridiculously expensive purchase, we measured the niche where the new fridge would fit. The verdict was that our space was bigger than any of the refrigerators (except the sub zero, commercial deals). We found the perfect fridge online, double checked the measurements and then went to see it in person at Sears. To make sure it really was the one we wanted. It was. Until we saw one down the aisle a bit. One that was better. And on sale. And had more cubic storage. You know why it had more cubic storage? BECAUSE IT WAS BIGGER! But that little factoid didn't ring any alarm bells for us. Oh no. In fact, we congratulated ourselves. A bigger fridge, for less money, with more room for food, for our big family. Yay us! Woo Hoo! Until the fridge was delivered. And it didn't fit. The delivery guy chuckled a bit and assured us that this happens all the time.
"Well, what do other people do?" we asked.
"I don't know," said the delivery guy. "Whatever they do, they do it after we leave."
Helpful, eh? I think we did what any normal people would do. (No, no, no. We did NOT punch the delivery guy in the face.) After the delivery guy left, we pushed the fridge really, really hard into the niche.
That didn't work. But it was funny. (It was quite possibly the last funny thing of the day.)
Now what? Our options were limited: send it back or make it fit. We chose door number two. And by 'we', I mean Sweet Hubby all by his lonesome, because me? I was a pissy wad. My plan for the day had included snuggling on the couch, watching a movie and helping SH pack for his two-week, business trip to New Zealand. It did not include a spur-of-the-moment, home improvement project. I'm learning that I'm not so good at changing plans on the fly. Especially when the change is from fun to chore. You want to know what I did? I shut down. I was NO HELP WHATSOEVER. I did not go with him to buy an $80 planing tool. I offered no ideas about the best way to shave the kitchen cabinets. I did help vacuum up about one one-hundredth of the 400 pounds of sawdust generated. (Oh, and I wore my cute, denim, short overalls to do it! That should count for something, no?) I was kind enough to 'help' him look for a chisel by stating categorically that I had never had one and that I couldn't imagine where one would be if we, for some bizarre reason, had one. And I gritched (not a lot but definitely some) about having to deal with this whole mess the day before he left. Like he needed that. Aren't you wishing that you were lucky enough to be married to me?? Oh and I documented. See:


Here he is. Optimistic man. See the ice cream sitting out on the counter? Like the project would be done quick as quick can be and then we'd just pop the sherbert into the new freezer and all would be good?

Um yeah. Didn't happen like that.

But isn't he cute? He's like the Home Improvement Bandit.
He did a fantastic job too. (And I'll keep saying that right up to the moment the cabinets fall down.) Here's how it looks now:

The boys had been away and hadn't seen the fridge until this morning. At first, they were impressed and then,
Mayhem said, "Wow it's bigger than I thought it would be."
Chaos said, "Hey, let's go see if they got a bigger TV too!"
Havoc said, "Nope. They didn't. Look."

In unison they said, "Aw maaaaaan."

The fact that we have a really, really great ice maker didn't help. All in all they decided they would rather have video games than cold food. I'll try to keep that in mind next time.

Peace.