Break a leg!

While my cat savagely attacks and kills an evil twisty tie, I'm updating you about the remodeling. Today was a slightly late start (woke up at 4:30 AM again, finally feel asleep again around 6:00 or 6:30, although only for an hour or so), and a long, rainy day that only cleared up again around 5 or 6 PM. There was still plenty to do, mostly re-learning how to play all the Bach I was working on B.R. (Before Remodel; -- especially the Gavotte en rondeau in E major that I've been playing obsessively -- it *was* in pretty good shape before I started the remodel and everything went to crap. Now it's getting back where it needs to be.)

But mostly I wanted to finish the kitchen cabinet. I spent a little more time this morning and discovered that a butcher block counter top could be obtained here in town, from Menard's, where they sell all kinds of amazing things.

The blade on this is over two feet long; it's a sword, not a machete

The countertop they had was birch (I'm pretty sure we have maple), which I thought might be too white to match. Long story short: it was.

Here's the cherry on maple for comparison. Definitely a better match, especially on the other side.

So, cherry it is: that just left redoing the drawers so they fit better (done), cutting and mounting the toe kicks (you know measure twice, cut once? I managed to cut two boards five times, but in the end, they were right), and screwing the countertop on. And that's where things went a little bit bad.

I drilled guide holes, but perhaps not deep enough (I *really* didn't want to accidentally drill through the top side of the countertop). So I couldn't get the screws to go in all the way (the drill bit would just slip again and again, which will strip the screws pretty quickly), and you really want the countertop bolted on tight. The problem was that I was drilling *up*, and you don't have gravity on your side, plus when you press against the unsecured countertop, it just... lifts up! So I had a clever idea -- flip the damn thing upside down, and drill down into the countertop. I did it, and it worked perfectly. So, now flip it back over, and we're done. Except the things now weights like thirty pounds more because of the countertop, and unfortunately, I broke a leg. No, not like that one time -- one of the cabinet legs. Remember when I secured the legs so they wouldn't pop off. Yeah, there's a reason they do that (it's still annoying and wrong, by the way -- IKEA should supply a cheap but sturdy metal frame, with legs that aren't made out of hollow plastic.) So, I'll either buy new legs, or get a replacement when I drive out there next month or whenever. For now, it's well propped up, all the wrapping is off, and it looks good.

There are some issues with any new piece of furniture. It doesn't do exactly what the old one did. I've tried to move stuff over from the metal cart that was there before, and things just don't work the same way: the top drawer actually won't fit the taller spice containers, the big trays just don't fit properly at all, etc. I'll let Lilya figure this out. It's above my pay grade, plus she loves doing that stuff.

After dinner, I watched Ikiru (Kurosawa, 1952): sad, funny, incredible directing and cinematography. Surprisingly long (2 ½ hours, and I thought it was done about 45 minutes earlier than it was). It was way better than last night's I Am Mother (Sputore, 2019), a sci-fi film that "is a technically handsome, well-acted sci-fi film that struggles to fully develop all of its grand ideas for maximum impact," according to Screen Rant, and that is *exactly* my impression -- better than 90% or even 95% of sci-fi films out there (almost all of which are idiotic horror films), but it wanted to be deeper or more thoughtful than it was.

I think I'm taking Father's Day off from the remodel, except perhaps to return the countertop to Menard's. time to catch up on some of that lost sleep. Some people have no trouble in that department!