Upper Cabinets, Corner Cabinets, and Nature’s Body Glue – Thoughts from October 19, 2025 – Part 1

Believe it or don’t, I didn’t finish talking about the kitchen yesterday. Patti and I put up most of the upper cabinets with no problems. There was one time in the beginning when I tried to put one cabinet up on my own. About the time I could barely hold one cabinet up, I realized I had made an unbelievably unwise decision. The best thing I can say is we didn’t have to buy a new cabinet to replace a broken one. We had to replace a cabinet but that came later. Just know that our cabinet buying days did not stop because I saved one cabinet.

We bought two upper cabinets that were corner pieces. They weren’t corner pieces as in a focal point of the room, but pieces that went in the corner. I typed that last paragraph without realizing I was referring to the cornerstone of a room. Before I waste another sentence with this nonsense, I’ll say that we were putting up the second corner cabinet on one wall. In other words, it was not a corner. I could only find one stud where the cabinet was going. It was a square-ish two-foot object that was going to be held up by one corner because of where the stud was. We brainstormed and tried to put it in another corner, but that area could only work with the cabinet that was already there. What were we going to do? I should end this entire article here to set a cliffhanger, but I haven’t hit my word quota.

If you skipped the last paragraph, I have many questions. To use the corner cabinet in a non-corner, we put a cabinet jack under the side that was hanging in space. I had to look up “cabinet jack” because I just called it the stick before. I already had two longer sticks, but I had to buy shorter sticks for the cabinets. My supply of adjustable sticks is growing rapidly. It was what I was using when I almost dropped the cabinet to the ground. This stick is temporary. When we get the counters put in, we will have a wood grain pole to hold it up permanently. The pole will match the cabinets.

One cabinet we got after I was back at work was going to be a bit of a project. It was an upper cabinet, but we were going to use it as a lower cabinet. This would involve me building a base under the cabinet to lift it to the base cabinet height. During my first days off after working five days, I opened the box to assess how I could build the base. I discovered that the cabinet’s door hinges had cracked all the way down. I showed Patti. We had to take it back to the store. She would have to order a new one online because they didn’t have any in the store. Building the base would wait for another day.

I was putting the cabinet back in Patti’s truck with the carpeted bench my dad used at his cash register business. It has four wheels. As I was putting it up into the back of the truck, the bench slipped away. The heavy box slid down my arm and thudded on the ground. Patti joked I broke it and we were going to have to take it back. With Patti’s help, we could get it in the back of the truck without further problems. I didn’t notice until we got to the store that I had a scar on my arm that had pus keeping the blood from flowing out. At the very least, I had a bad-ass scar to show people at work. If you don’t like the term “pus,” pretend I said nature’s body glue.

I think talking about nature’s body glue is a good stopping point. But wait! I had more. For the rest of the story about the kitchen and non-kitchen related things, come back next week for Part 2.