Mounting storage cabinets

Mag found this perky three-door cabinet, fully assembled at her local home centre.

I wake up trapped in the seductive pages of a 'storage solutions' catalogue, dreaming that I live in a precisely organized home. All of my shirts are white linen, hung in cavernous closets on identical wooden hangers spaced exactly 2-1/2 inches apart. The surface of my desk is vacant but for tasteful accessories. My immaculate laundry room has a multi-unit hamper with white canvas bags for every shade of dirt. My basement boasts rows of white storage cabinets, sparsely stocked by a rigidly minimalist designer.

My eyes flutter open. The images of an orderly lifestyle pucker and retreat. I notice I am irritable.

I get up and pull on gritty workclothes. There's one answer to the frown on my face and it's not Botox. It's storage space, and I aim to get some. I hop in the truck. The truck knows the route to the home centre without my help, so I just lean back and suck on an iced cappuccino.

The home centre has a perky three-door cabinet, fully assembled. I'm starting to feel a spring in my step. But there's a lineup at the washroom. A new mother is in there attempting to change a baby. I back away slowly. There'll be other bathrooms. But no more iced cappuccino on the trip home.

I drive back to the house and muscle the cabinet into the basement. My pocket-model electronic stud-finder goes to work identifying the edges of each stud behind the faux panelling. One of these mornings, that panelling has to go, but in the meantime, I've got a unit to mount.

I heave the new cabinet onto the laundry table. With the rear of the unit facing me, I center it on the wall. I trace the side edges of the cabinet onto the wall for reference when I'm caught up in the white heat of the actual mounting procedure.

I'm not in the mood for elaborate measuring, so I decide to get creative. Improvising has got me into trouble in the past, but I suspect my luck has changed.

Using a square, I transfer the stud locations onto the mounting strips that run along the back of the cabinet. I drill pilot holes through both mounting strips at the stud locations. I set the cabinet aside. This is going well. Too well.

I hang a temporary 2x4 ledger to support the weight of the cabinet while I'm busy screwing it to the wall. Experience reminds me that if the ledger isn't installed on the level, the cabinet won't be either, so I use the longest level I own to ensure this ledger is Dead Horizontal. I pre-drill and screw the ledger into two of the studs. I'm building an appetite, but nothing that beer and chips can't handle. Oh wait. I'm using power tools. Better make that beer and pretzels. The last thing I need is a slippery tool coming between me and a precision mounting job.

I call for a relative to help lift the cabinet onto the ledger. The relative is listless and pre-occupied, so I remove the cabinet doors because I know they'll just swing open and hit one of us in the teeth. Overbites run in our family. So do fix-it accidents. Mostly because we work with our mouths open.

Next, I make a t-jig (a couple of pieces of 2x4 screwed together to form a t-shape) and cut it to match the height of the ledger. The relative and I lift the cabinet onto the ledger, aligning the sides to match those reference marks I made earlier. I insert the t-jig to hold the weight of the front edge of the cabinet. With my free hand I brace the top of the cabinet against the wall. The relative stares into space. I'm on my own here. I drive a screw confidently through one of the pilot holes I drilled earlier.

Then it happens. I don't feel the screw bite into wood. I've missed the stud. I tell the relative to take a break. I need a moment alone. I retrace my steps. I grin as I suddenly remember that I rotated the cabinet end to end when we were lifting it into position. D-oh! So now the pilot holes aren't lining up with the studs. This is getting good. I like a job that keeps me guessing. I know there are four possible solutions, so I toy with each of them:

• Flip the cabinet end to end (the unit is completely reversible).
• Shift the cabinet sideways a bit so the holes line up with the studs (using the screws in the ledger for visual reference).
• Instead of shifting the cabinet, which is perfectly centered where it is, start the drill bit in the original pilot hole, but angle the bit enough that it finds the stud location by travelling at a jaunty slant.
• Simply redrill new holes adjacent to the botched ones, with the relative steadying the unit while I do the real work.

I go with option #3. I like the hot-dogging intensity of drilling on an angle. Once I drive a couple of upper screws, the cabinet holds its own. I relax and finish the screwing with a reduced sense of urgency.

I'm almost done. I remove the temporary ledger, install the shelves and hardware, and load that baby up with laundry accessories.

I go to sleep thinking fondly of storage units. But they're not in somebody's catalogue. They're in my basement. They may not make me flawlessly organized, but I'm less irritable, and where I come from, that means a lot.