TheBanyanTree: I learned a lesson today

[Laura]

For 12 years we've lived in this house.  For 12 years, I've lived with kitchen cabinets that 
don't have knobs or drawer pulls.  This year, I finally got tired of breaking off my nails, or 
worse, ending up with wood chips under my nails.

My husband and I went to Lowe's a couple days ago, and chose the hardware we thought 
would look nice with the cabinets.  I found a guide made specifically for putting harware on 
cabinets, and bought it too.  Last night, I started putting the knobs on the cabinets.  No 
problems, easy as pie.  Put the guide on the edge of the cabinet drawer, pick the right hole, 
mark it, drill it, screw the knob on.  I did all 20 cabinets in about half an hour, not counting 
clean up time.  Call it 45 minutes total.

Then I started on the drawer pulls.  The pulls claimed to be 3" span pulls.  That means the 
bolts are 3" apart.  Ok, so I pulled the drawer front off the first drawer, found the center, 
marked holes 3" apart evenly spaced from center (1.5 inches on each side of center, I 
mean), and drilled the holes.  The pull did NOT fit.  The screws were just ever so much 
slightly closer than I had drilled.  Well, bugger.  I sometimes make stupid measuring 
mistakes, but I had measured TWICE to make sure the darn holes were EXACTLY three 
inches apart on the center.  I know the drill didn't slip, because I make a pilot hole by 
stabbing the wood with a sharp pencil.  I remeasured.  Yep, the holes were exactly three 
inches on the center.

That's when I thought to measure the holes in the drawer pull.  (yeah, I know - DUH)  Guess 
what?  Apparently I've been doing too much construction work and not enough cabinetry... 
the darn holes were three inches to the OUTSIDE, not to the center!

Fortunately, I was able to correct the mistake on the first drawer with no external visible 
signs.  Today I took the time to make a template - and put a handle on it to be *certain* it fit! 
- before I started drilling holes in the drawer fronts.

My lesson?  Never take anybody's word for a measurement.  Always measure it yourself!!

:)

Now I have 9 more drawer pulls to put on...

-- 
Wolfie
wolfljsh at gmail.com