Thursday, May 15, 2014

A little cabinetry repair and a big windstorm

I have four large lower drawers in The Palms, and they have all failed.  It's the only thing I've had a problem with in The Palms that I can think of.  The two dinette benches have long drawers under them, that's where I store miscellaneous things and electronic stuff.  They went first; I could still open and close them, but it was obvious they were off the tracks or the plastic rear mounting brackets the tracks fit into at the back were broken.

Then the large drawer under my fridge, which only holds long pants - jeans, khaki slacks, sweats, etc. came off the track.  Finally the drawer under the stove that holds my good, larger pots did the same.  They were still all opening and closing, just with a little difficulty and honestly, I don't open any of those drawers that much.  I seldom wear long pants and I have a smaller pot and pan that I store in the oven to keep them handy, and I use them for most of my cooking. 

Yesterday my jeans drawer came completely off the track and then the track came off the drawer -  so I pulled it out and couldn't put it back until it was fixed.  I put it on the couch wondering how in the world was I going to fix it.  I just didn't feel like even going there at that point.  Having that big drawer sitting on my couch, though, was taking up a lot of room and I needed to fix it soon.

This morning the pot drawer fell apart.  The bottom came completely off.  I was able to pull the side structure of the drawer out - and then got the bottom out and pulled all the pots out of the drawer opening and placed them on the floor.  Obviously today was the day I had to do some repairs.

The photo below shows a "before shot."  This was the best I could do closing the dinette drawers before the fix. The problem with these drawers is that they are long and can't be taken all the way out, the couch is in the way.  So I took the cushions and backs off the bench seats, then removed the plywood that holds the cushions to get to the inside of the drawer space.


There was a lot of wiggling around to get the right positions to do the fixes, some tracks were off and I had to bang on the sides with a hammer to force them back into the tracks, and also the mountain brackets that hold the drawer tracks were broken, so I did some work-arounds to make the tracks stay in place.  Surprisingly, it was easier than I thought it would be and they both work great now.  I'm thinking a good wooden brace going from side to side under the tracks would be a good idea to hold things in place.

The next photo shows the mounting brackets that the tracks fit into.  I think the weight of the filled drawers is too heavy and some of these were broken and/or the screws were out and the bracket wasn't connected to the wood, so they needed to be fixed and screwed back in with longer screws.


This is what it looked like after the fix - the drawer closes completely flush and it runs smoothly on the tracks:

The photo below shows the two drawers in the kitchen - one under the fridge and one under the stove.  They were both fixed, as well as the dinette seat drawer on the kitchen side of the table:

Below is the pot drawer - I had to nail the bottom back on - it was stapled on before - what a horrible way to put cabinetry together!  Especially in a kitchen - where one would put pots, pans, maybe even cans of food.  No wonder the bottom fell out.  Then I screwed the track back on with longer screws and it's all holding just fine now and sliding in and out as it should.  It's so nice to have all the drawers working again!

So...  if you have some drawers that aren't running smoothly, it's not really a hard fix to get them "back on track."  And if your rear mounting brackets are ruined, you can get new ones to install.

Elephant  Butte Lake was covered in white caps during our big windstorm - there were even little waves coming up onto the beaches.  Boy, the wind and gusts were really something!

I didn't see a single boat out on the water all day.

Katie and I stayed inside as much as we could, with just a few short potty walks when necessary.  It was time for a little comfort food, so I made on of my favorites, New York Pie (I just named it -I make it so often, it deserves a name). It's a dish I ordered when I was in New York City at a vegetarian restaurant.  One of my friend's sisters worked there and she recommended it.  I've posted it before, but here it is again: 

Cook some rice and put it on the bottom of a plate, add a layer of cooked broccoli and cauliflower pieces on top of the rice.   Pour some Marinara sauce over the top, cover with grated cheese (I always put a LOT of cheese) and microwave until the cheese is melted.  Then top off with sour cream.  OMG, I love this dish and it's so easy to make!  I always cover the plate with it, thinking I'll save half for a leftover meal, and I always finish the whole plate.  YUM!

Below is a photo of the western sky the afternoon of the big storm.  I thought there was a fire in the west and the sky was filled with smoke, but it turned out to just be dust.  That's how fierce the winds was.

There was a pretty moon rising amid some clouds in the eastern sky, which was mostly a pretty blue.  The western sky was dark and dust-cloudy and the eastern sky was pretty and blue.  Weird.



















As the sun was setting, it glowed in the orange sky.









I took a bunch of photos of the sun as it was going down. I used a couple of different settings; don't these almost make your eyes feel like you're looking right at the real sun?





We know it's not safe to look directly at the sun, and the last time I took photos like this I did some research and learned it's not safe to look right at the sun even through the camera lens. 

And the sunset skyline with the dust clouds all around:

Here's The Palms in the glow of the orange sunset as the clouds were blowing east over the lake:


WELCOME to our newest Follower, Jan!  Jan is one of our followers who has no information and no photo, so I can't give you the scoop.  Katie and I appreciate you following along with us - Welcome Aboard, Jan!  :)

From me and Katie, have a great Tuesday, everyone!  :)

26 comments:

  1. The veggie dish looks really good - I'd use pasta, of course! Rice is good, too, but I LOVES me pasta shapes! ;-> I made quinoa last night in the Nissan-Thermos vacuum bottle, so have a nice pile of that for upcoming side dishes.

    Virtual hugs,

    Judie

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  2. Good job on the drawer repairs. I was a bit surprised when you said the wind was blowing at EB. It would be bigger news if the wind wasn't blowing from my past history in that area.

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  3. Great job on the drawers... the staple thing was weird but something to look for and be pre-emptive in future repairs...

    I love your pie dish... I try to stay gluten free and with the rice it looks so good... One question is that a paper (heavy type) plate/bowl? Wow I just love it... and I can't wait to try it.
    With the fires in SoCal I can see how you would see the dusty west as smoke...

    Thanks for sharing and your blog is great.

    Carlene aka Waianaegal

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  4. Good for you, fixing it yourself! Bet that felt great!
    Take care,
    Jeanne

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  5. I had problems with the drawers in my 5th Wheel....don't see why they seem to make some of these drawers so cheep when it would not take much to make a stronger, better drawer. Good job fixing them. Marcia has trouble opening some of our drawers since you have to push in a bit, lift up and then pull out. One in particular really gets to her. Not sure what I am going to do about that. By-the-way, you are missing a very hot start to summer in Sacramento area. Heard it hit 100 over in your old neighborhood today. Looking for a cooler weekend however. --Dave

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  6. Hi from Sacramento area hot spot - 100 degrees today in El Dorado Hills.
    I'm so impressed with your cabinetry repair skills. I currently have an upper cupboard door that's hanging precariously due to the screws coming loose, most likely due to jostling of the coach during travel. I've tried to fix it myself, but it appears to need two sets of hands to accomplish, so I'll wait until I move back in and get somebody to join me for the repair.
    I, too, can't figure out why RV manufacturers use such flimsy and cheap cabinets in most RVs. It's really frustrating, irritating too.

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    1. Forgot to mention that you're photos in this post are spectacular. The one nemesis for me in RV travel and life is WIND. Just hunker down and hope for the winds to die down so you can enjoy the out-of-doors.

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  7. Good job on the drawer repairs. A few months a go I asked you how your home on wheels was holding up, this is the type of thing I was asking about. The really great thing is you took on the repair yourself and didn't have to pay anyone!

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  8. When we had our Class C, I loved the drawers under the seats on the dinette because they held so much, but they were always a problem to pull out, mainly I suppose because they had so much stuff in them. We also had to fix the runners in them. But after we did that I took a candle, a regular old wax candle and rubbed each runner with it. I put a fair amount on each runner and boy did it help. Any drawer that doesn't glide properly just do the candle trick. Works well.

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  9. You made me hungry looks delicious. Hasnt been windy up here at El Vado for 2 whole days

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  10. You go girl! A tool box is a gals best friend....next to her fur friends. Great recipe. Yesterday, I read a disturbing article about microwave cooking. The problem is that I cannot where I read it. But it made enough sense to make me choose now to nuke foods again. With your recipe, I will just put the dish under the broiler for a few seconds.

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  11. Fantastic job on the drawers! The NY Pie looks delish--we're going to have that this week! Quite a windstorm--the lake looks pretty with all those waves.

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  12. Good job on the repairs. I have one drawer in my kitchen that gives me problems and I had to repair it several times. I now keep lighter weight stuff in that drawer.

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  13. You are a very handy repair lady, I doubt I would have tackled that. RV repair-shop to the rescue. Good for you!

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  14. One our long, under dinette bench drawers in the motorhome is awry also. The quality of drawer hardware in RVs isn't the best, it appears, even in the higher priced units. Add to that, the abuse they take from bumping over the roads and they're generally a pain in the butt.

    Good for you on the repairs! Whenever I have stapled together stuff come apart I like to glue and screw (or nail) them back together. If the makers would just glue and screw this crap together there would be little chance of separations. Oh well.

    Love the pix - keep hanging them on your blog!
    --Bob

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  15. We were at Elephant Butte this weekend (Monticello Point) and we did see and smell smoke from the Signal Fire in Silver City. If you took that picture Sunday, I bet it was smoke from the fire. That windstorm was crazy!

    Great job with the repairs!

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  16. You are a good detective to figure out what was needed for those drawer repairs. I'm glad you showed photos so we really understood the problem. I'm sorry you had such a bad storm!

    Hugs to Katie

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  17. Oh my that dish looks so good! I am gonna try to make some of that!

    ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
    Karen and Steve
    (Blog) RVing: The USA Is Our Big Backyard
    http://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com
    ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

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  18. Good for you Barbara on doing those fixes !!

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  19. Well, I am going to try that recipe!! Looks and sounds good!! great pictures

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  20. Nice job on the repair!!!! And I love the photos! So, big news... we got our new to us RV!! We'll almost. Picking it up and bringing home on the 30th. So now I know how to rescue MY jeans if that happens. ;)

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  21. Been there, done that. We had the same problems in our class A. Until Peter switched the plastic to metal brackets. What an ordeal working in these cramped spaces. Good for you that you could do it all by yourself! Good job.

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  22. Those drawers drive me nuts. I can't count the times I've had to buy new parts for mine. I think the traveling also breaks them sometimes. I feel your pain!

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