With most of the pieces cut it was time to put it all together. Sara was working on her other job (the one that pays her) so it was just me. Wrangling four large boards to glue, clamp, and nail accurately was a bit of a challenge but I did fine. Except for the part where I forgot to line up one of the boards. Fortunately I was able to rip off the board, cut the brad nails, and redo it. Whew. That was close! As I needed all my hands, no pictures during the assembly.
With the cabinet basically assembled I had to start thinking about the other parts that needed to fit together. I have some wires running behind the cabinet so that meant putting it in, seeing where the wires run, taking it out, and drilling some more holes so the wires pass cleanly. The microwave cabinet also needs to match up with the refrigerator cabinet below for ventilation so that was some more measuring and cutting of the bottom shelf.
Finally, I needed to think about the wiring that will be in that cabinet. As it is the wall facing the bed, we planned to put a light switch there that will control the four recess lights over the bed. We also need an AC outlet for the microwave. I had to dig out those parts and measure what holes had to be cut. I also needed to build a small electrical box on the inside of the microwave cabinet to protect the back of the switch and to hold the socket for the microwave.
After all that, another test fit just to see how things look. Wait, what’s this extra wire? Oh, right, I also need to wire in the heater control rheostat. Dig that out of the box and start looking at how it fits together. Wait, the control is how deep? That won’t fit in the electrical box I already built to cover the light switch!
Build a new box.
This is how things go even when I’m making good progress! At least today was two steps forward and only one step back.