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!  :)