Had to repair a dropped kitchen cabinet door today. Shown to me last night by the Minister of Home Affairs. She said it was the one I replaced last year (meaning: ey, your DIY workmanship not that good, lah). That kicked my goat, poked my ego, and sent a shiver down the old bent spine (what if true?). But check check a bit and hosay! Not the one I replaced last year.
Here’s the story of last year.
A kitchen cabinet door would not open fully. You know, one of those messy spring loaded high tech hinges that has parts to be screwed onto another part to be screwed to the cabinet or door; the old style ugly ones never give this problem. Snuck a screwdriver through the tight gap and felt and cursed and finally got the inside anchor part detached from the cabinet.
Cheapskate me went to neighbourhood hardware DIY shop to look for a replacement. Ah ha! Discovered not such an easy walkover errand. How long is the hinge when opened, how fat is it, how thick is the door, how many screw holes, how far apart are screw holes on the cabinet-part of the assembly, how big are the old screw holes there, what’s the diameter of the attachment screws, etc etc? Two types available. $3.50 each. Which one you want? Bought the one that looked like what I could recall of the hinge that’s still attached to the cabinet door. Not a problem; a little bit of adjustment required here and there, that’s all.
Discovered not so, man. No amount of adjustment would be satisfactory. Of course I didn’t do the adjustments lah. How can? What if I made those screw holes bigger? One hole I mean; because the other was further apart than the old one and had to be freshly created. Didn’t drill that one hole yet, lah, of course. Got to make sure of all angles and alternatives and plan B’s first before I bring out the heavy equipment.
OK, let’s check with SimSiangChoon which sold us the Chippendale kitchen cabinets. Oh oh, they stopped kitchen five years ago, concentrating on bathrooms only. Now how?
Then, hey! a bright lamp in speech bubble over my head lit up. Lets Google some help. The company name Blum and a number on the old hinge. Sadly, I had to uncrew and detach the door part of it to search for identification marks. The item part number was on the round part, that part that is buried in the big round hole.
So got to a few sites. Click here and here. But first had to determine what the heck the hinge was called or described. Full overlay clip hinge 180 degree blah blah. The sites were hardware retail outlets in the US. Add a few dollars for airfreight, wait a few weeks (?) at worse for delivery, and then I can do the replacement. But what if not the right item, what if it doesn’t arrive, what if this what if that? Ey, when are you going to repair the hinge, darling?
Logged out, took out the old Yellow Pages. Flip, flip pages. Tried one ring ring do you have Blum hinges? No? Oh ok thank you. Third one struck gold; no wonder never strike Toto that year.
Went to Hong Li Hardware Pte Ltd at 906K Upper Thomson Road, Singapore 787110, Tel 64558774 / 64558650 and spoke to one Mr Phua Kok Leong HP : 97666273. This shop has BLUM hinges.
And cheap too; so I got two of the same, just in case the upper one fails too. The replacement (old model out of production but a new one can be used to replace it) was better; it had a slide-on and a click-catch to attach the door part (and door of course) to the cabinet part.
It even had the slot for the Chippendale nameplate.
So out with my toolbox and a few minutes later, the door was up and all’s fine again (see pics).
OK, back to yesterday’s cabinet door.
The holes enlarged on their own (chipboard not a good material to screw on frequently moved parts like doors). But a bit of paper stuffing should work, or perhaps some turns of that white plumbing tape that those DIY hunks on TV so easily use to solve life death situations in their kichens.
‘ey, darling, why not use rawlplug?’
OK, OK, that’s why she’s the Minister of Home Affairs.
