Spring 2021 One Room Challenge Week 7

The cabinets arrived! I am writing a big ole’ post about them that will provide lots of details regarding ordering, assembling, and installing (I’m currently working on it, and it will be a doozy). Right now, I am just trying to wrap up this project and ensure I have something to reveal next week.

The cabinets were very intimidating at first. They are ready-to-assemble (RTA), which basically means that my husband and I were responsible for putting them together. The pieces/parts arrived on three different pallets. It’s not like buying a cabinet from Ikea where all the components are in a box or two with the directions. Instead, all the like-components (all the backs, fronts, etc.) across the whole order were packaged together. In addition, nothing was labeled, and I didn’t get a list of parts to verify that I received everything. It was very much a figure-it-out kind of project (which is totally fine by me!). I did my best to sort things out the night they arrived.

The next day I knew I had to create a parts list to confirm that we had everything (our delivery guy told us we were missing a pallet). I made a spreadsheet and listed the different parts that I expected for each cabinet and headed out to the garage with post-its and a tape measure to identify and label each piece.

Luckily we had everything!

At this point, we were ready to assemble the cabinets. The Cabinet Bar has a short, animated video that describes how to assemble the cabinets. It also provides written instructions in a PDF document. However, neither one of these are by any means step-by-step. My husband and I read them three times and tried to get started. We ended up watching videos by The Cabinet Joint (they sell cabinets made by the same manufacturer). Their videos were beneficial and informative. In my big write-up, I’ll list all the videos to watch.

After two days of work, the cabinets were assembled and ready to be installed. We wanted to make a few modifications first. Primarily cutting holes in the box so that we could access the electrical outlets.

As for the installation, Jeremy deserves 100% of the credit. He researched, planned, and problem solved every part of it. I just assisted. Actually, that word may give me too much credit. I told him when things were lined up and held the cabinet box when he did all the important stuff.

We used cabinet jacks to hang the wall cabinets. Typically, people install a ledger board, but we didn’t want to mess up the wallpaper. They worked great! We still need to install the base cabinets (maybe tonight?). Jeremy assures me it will be much easier than the wall cabinets.

We have one week left and the to do list is still long! Here is what we have left to do: