Kitchen Shelves Instead Of Our Big Cabinet

The night before we were supposed to leave town for 4th of July, I noticed that it looked like more of my cabinet was pulling away from the kitchen wall.

4th of July was wonderful by the way. 
The food was delicious! 
We had family float time. Several of us siblings and spouses just floated in the lake, talking.  It was heavenly once a few got over their fear of snakes. ;) So much fun!

I wish someone had gotten a picture of us on our floaties but alas not one picture.
 Maybe they don't trust me not to publish it on my blog. Haha.

 Anyway.

It was about six months ago that I first noticed the trim on the side of the cabinet was no longer snug against the wall. 

Several more screws drilled into the studs took care of the problem or so I thought. 

Nope. The problem wasn't with the screws going through the back into the wall studs. The problem was with the side of the cabinet splitting away from the back of the cabinet. 

You could see light coming through the cabinet between the side and the back. Eeek!

I drilled an angle bracket into the side and back to keep it secure while we were out of town. 

I was tempted to google "cabinets falling off of the wall" but images of china, glass and splintered cabinet all over the floor came to mind. 

Can you imagine?

I wouldn't have been able to sleep all weekend.

Pondering it while we were gone drew me to several conclusions. 

We could add corbels under the cabinet to give it more support and therefore stop the slow splitting but 
Mrs. Paranoid would check it obsessively.

We could rip it down, rebuild the box and put it back up.

We could get a new cabinet and paint it to match. 
The new cabinet could be a more modern height.
Finally, we could install open shelving. 

I kept coming back to the open shelving idea. 

Bill trusts our ability to keep it neat and organized after all my cabinet and pantry organization projects this past year. 

He doesn't trust me to not have 15 different types of china on the shelves. 

I promised to purge and to fill it with matching, white  china.

I'm getting all tingly at the idea of stacks of plates, bowls, platters etc. 

Yesterday I pinned, purged and took down the cabinet.

I unscrewed all the screws except the final screw. I lowered one end onto a stool and once the last screw was out I lowered the other end on to another stool. I got it down off of the counter by resting one end on the step ladder and then I lifted it down. 

The wall will need to be repaired behind the cabinet and then painted.

Hmmm. I kind of like how open it is.

This is the texture mixture.

All the sponge painting I did back in 1987 came in handy.
I used a paper towel and then a sponge to dab it on. 

I didn't rest until that beast was off of the wall.

This cabinet was 48 inches wide and had to weigh several hundred pounds. 
No wonder.
I'll keep you posted but right now I'm going to excuse myself and grieve the loss of my pretty white cabinet.

Katie   

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