Measure Twice, Cut Once

I think on virtually every woodworking project I've completed I've made at least one boneheaded mistake. Usually it's early on in the assembly and I smack myself in the head and get it fixed before going any further. With Ian's kitchen, however, I managed to screw up and not notice it until way late.

I made the doors to the oven and dishwasher with hinges at the bottom, just like the real thing. (I strive for authenticity.) I used almost full width piano hinges, flat to the face of the kitchen rather than trying to mortice them. What can I say? I was pressed for time, and also I'm lazy.

Anyway, if you look at this picture, it's easier to understand the issue. When you open that door just past 90 degrees so it's laying on the floor, the bottom inside edge of the door is sticking up the thickness of the stock, plus a little extra from the hinge, say 5/8" total. The problem? The drawer slides that green bin is riding on are only 1/2" high. The result? When you try to pull it out it moves a few inches and thunks into the edge of the door. Then Ian starts crying because he can't reach all the stuff he dumped in there.

To answer the question, "What is that, anyway?", it's supposed to be a vague representation of a dishwasher. The bin is kind of like the dish racks inside the dishwasher. I even got a couple of buttons at an electronics store for extra realism. That's what those black dots are in the upper left of the picture.

It took me so long to realize I'd screwed up because when I was working on this in the garage I had the entire kitchen sitting on my workbench. When I opened the door there it could swing a full 180 degrees, moving completely out of the way of the drawer slides. Oh, bother.

So today I fixed it. In doing so, I ran into another annoying little issue. To get the drawer slides out required removing the bin portion. If you've ever tried to remove ball bearing slides like that, you know that each slide has a little black lever you need to push on to disengage the lock. (That's what stops the drawer from pulling out completely when you tug on it.) Usually these are easy to reach; you grab the sides of the drawer and flick that catches with your index finger.

I unfortunately had placed the slides so far back on the bottom of the cabinet that I couldn't jam my fingers into the 1/2" gap to release them. Lying on the floor with a flashlight, I was able to stick a butter knife into the gap and trip one of the releases. The problem was that even if I could have managed to do both at once, I didn't have a free hand to pull on the drawer to get it out, and the command seemed to be too complicated for Ian the Helper Monkey.

Finally I gave up and just taking it apart. I unscrewed the bin from the piece of wood it was fixed to and then had enough space to get to the screws holding the entire works to the kitchen base. Once I got it out, I got the rest of it apart.

I ended up just putting a scrap piece of 3/4" stock underneath everything and putting it back in. Not only does it slide out when the door is open, the scrap piece is shallower allowing me to reach those catches if ever I need to pull the stupid bin out again.

I hope he appreciates all this. When he's older I'll show him pictures and tell him how much I was cursing.