busybee fluffy rambles

The plan went pretty much according to keikaku¹.

I had difficulty finding the studs because there’s some particleboard behind the drywall for some reason. Maybe some half-assed attempt at a moisture barrier or something? It was pretty obvious that it was there since it was visible through the light wiring hole. I ended up using some neodymium magnets to locate some drywall screws and then verified it by drilling pilot holes. I’m not absolutely certain that they’re screwed into studs but there’s a lot more support than there was before, and those screws are at least held tight to the wall.

On the left anchor I thought I’d messed up and that there actually was a stud behind it, somehow, and I started to patch it up so that I could screw in a construction screw instead (which is why there’s plaster on the left hole in the first picture), until I remembered, oh yeah, there’s weird backing board behind some of the drywall. So I drilled a smaller pilot hole and, yep, it went through easily, so yeah, it needed an anchor after all. (I mean I already knew that based on what had happened previously, but, still.)

Also I couldn’t find the nice toggle anchors I’d bought a couple years ago, so I ended up buying some similar ones at Home Depot. Which aren’t nearly as nice. A couple of them ended up breaking off and falling into the wall, and they were just kinda not-great to work with in general. But they did their job, and everything’s tightly screwed down.

Leveling the cabinet was a pain in the ass. It’d have been a lot easier if I had someone to help me but I was being stubborn about just getting this done.

Also, I didn’t need to do any painting, as all of the paint damage happened to be behind the cabinet. Nice.

Hopefully this time it stays up for more than two years!

Also I decided to be fancy and whipped up a custom centering jig to draw the centerline for drilling the holes in the hardwood. It was absolutely overkill but it didn’t take me long to do. I’ll probably post it as a customizable object on thingiverse/printables or something.