there’s nothing like discovering another one of those little easter eggs left behind by the criminally negligent previous owners. like when ben noticed that our kitchen cupboards had been screwed directly to the drywall (not a stud) and were gradually pulling out of the wall.

the immediate solution was to put the cupboards up on stilts. since the Rat Crisis of 2015 began almost immediately after this, the cupboards quickly moved down the priority list. like most of the visual flaws in this house, we learned not to even see the stilts after a while.

but this past weekend, while i patched and painted moulding in the dining room, ben installed the cupboards properly. it turned out the cupboards came constructed with a mounting rail, so all he had to do was actually anchor through the rail into a stud to shore things up.

this is not as easy as it sounds. nothing is ever as easy as it sounds. remember, russian nesting projects.

our walls, from outside to inside, consist of brick, 2×4″ studs placed at random intervals / open space where we wish there was insulation, then lathe, plaster, and then drywall. the layers of lathe means that a stud finder is a completely useless tool. absent of x-ray vision, the only way to determine the location of a stud is to drill exploratory holes. sometimes lots of them.

but he was successful. we took down the stilts, and after having gotten used to looking at them, it now looks like the cupboards just magically float above the countertops. at least adversity is gradually teaching us to appreciate the little things. like our magically floating cupboards that totally didn’t come crashing down in the middle of the night.