This project has introduced us to a whole host of interesting characters who have come to ply their trade or deliver their goods. This week saw a couple most curious fellows come and deliver our cabinets. Mr. Surly Beard was an imposingly large man possessed of an imposingly large beard, coke bottle glasses that made his eyes look like saucers and (as Amy said) “attitude for days.” He was sour that we moved the delivery back a day, sour about the state of our job site, sour about the weight of our cabinets and sour about the unsatisfactory means of ingress for his precious delivery. He was probably also surly about the 90+ degree heat and oppressive humidity, though surprisingly it was one of the few things he didn’t complain about.

His partner Mr. Hard Living was a bald fellow about half the size, and with considerably more surface area dedicated to tattoos than to clothing. He was missing several teeth and had an impressive scar down the side of his scalp (I got that story while we were unloading the sink base and he cracked the other side of his head on the dining room light fixture.) He readily declared that compared to the other things he’d done in his life, this job was “a piece of cake.” He was almost amusingly more upbeat than his partner, and made an effort to “manage up” to the more senior member of this duo.

They made relatively quick work of the standard base and upper cabinets, stacking them in the office next to the 4300 pounds of wood flooring. (Its kind of like a pretty tree graveyard in there). But the thing that made Mr. Surly Beard most surly of all was this monster:

He was skeptical of this offending cupboard from the time of his arrival, declaring it would never get in through the door and it would be the death of them to just to get it out of the truck. Its three feet wide, three feet deep and almost eight feet tall. In over 5 years with the company he had never seen its like.

Funny enough, one of the main reasons we ultimately went with custom cabinets* was to get this particular piece. My mom did something like this in her kitchen with a large full-height corner unit filled with lazy susan shelves to use as a spacious pantry. Since we didn’t plan a room-sized pantry – and lets face it, corner cabinets and counters are hard to use anyway – this seemed like a great solution. The salesman from the local showroom came to the house and measured our back door – and then had them make the cabinet exactly that wide. So from the front of the cabinet to the nipped-off back corner it is precisely 34.75 inches across.

Well it turns out its that size with the doors off, and not including the nailing strips they install for you to screw the cabinet into the wall. So after the three of us fellas with great anxiety and exertion managed to lower The Beast down out of the truck and onto a pallet by the back door, MSB had to strip off all the foam wrapping, remove the doors, take out all the shelves, pry out a bunch of staples that the factory left embedded in it, and then use a saws-all to cut back the 6 nailing strips. He performed these tasks while pouring sweat and profanities. Meanwhile I passed the time by chatting with Mr. Hard Living about his kids and the pathetic state of Illinois politics.

From there the four of us (with Amy added to the mix) then had to lift it, on the diagonal point, up three feet from uneven ground and through the door frame with millimeters to spare. MSB shoved it into the hallway on its back side and said “there, its in.”

Honestly, once they had secured victory over their nemesis, Mr. Surly Beard got a bit less surly. We gave them each a cold bottle of water and a cash tip (to which Mr. Hard Living declared “its steak tonight!”) They chatted a bit about some of their other delivery jobs, gave us some pointers on how to get The Beast around into the kitchen and set up in place, and then left with courteous well-wishes. Definitely about the most lively hour I’ve spent on the job site during this whole project.

*-It turns out custom cabinets don’t cost as much as you’d think. Ours were hardly more than the quotes we got from Home Depot and Menards, but we get exactly what we want. That let us do a custom “half sink base” where the little bar sink goes at the drink station, as well as The Beast and a few other minor details you couldn’t match with stock cabinets.