Temporary Chaos

yikes! good thing it's temporary

As some of you know from first hand experience, RV cabinets are typically not made to hold much weight.  But what is the purpose of this?  I know the manufacturers want to keep the overall weight down but sagging cabinet bottoms is a good way to get your contents broken.

Roamin's cabinets were no different than Raven's cabinets.  We got used to it at the time and didn't think much about it.

Raven has a large cabinet over the front sink area that extends nearly the entire width of her.  In the short two months of having to deal with a sagging shelf we knew it was time to do something about it.

Luckily Ron is tool savvy!  Plus his ability to design what needs to be made is uncanny!  Yes, he does read this and he approved this message :-))


Once the cabinet was emptied Ron got to work.  Mind you, this was a long process and everything went in and out of the cabinets frequently...  First things first: assess the situation.  As soon as the top layer was opened up we knew what was needed.  The entire cabinet (~16" x 72") was void of any interior support.  Time to go get some 1" x 2" boards and hardware.

      
Good thing we have a small air compressor as it came in handy a few times on this project.  Ron assembled right angle hardware on the cut pieces prior to installing them into the cabinet. 




Notches were cut out for the light fixture wiring.  The supports were spaced 9" or 10" apart across the entire length of the cabinet.  

It was a tight fit working in the back area of the cabinet.  The doors had to come off for the time being.  The shelf couldn't come out so it had to be taped up and back out of the way.






Once all of the supports were in place, Ron's outside-of-the-box thinking/designing came into play.  He created a plastic holder for all of our shaker cups, ninja cups and water bottles.  Because the front of the rig is curved Ron had to design it with that in mind.  The holder itself is screwed directly to the vertical facade pieces so it won't budge.  It takes up the entire center cavity.  It sure simplifies getting what we need.

I bought a couple of organizers from Lowe's and put them into the left cabinet section.  I highly recommend using some sort of grip-mat on the base of the shelves.  It helps keep glass from shifting due to road vibration.  I even put it on the store bought shelves to keep items in place.

Another holder that Ron designed and custom built is this organizer.  Our soup mugs and coffee cups each have their own slot on the top section.  The center section holds our dinner plates.  The plates are easily removable because they slide in/out.  But when we drive we put a small piece of grip-mat under the front of the bottom plate.  The bottom section holds two cookie racks perfectly!  There is an area to the far right of the holder that is 'wasted space'.  I decided to use this for items that I rarely use.  I hadn't put down the grip-mat when the photo was taken, but it's there now.

Slowly but surely Raven is going to get this type of added support to her other cabinets.

This morning Ron and I hitched up Raven to Rainer.  I'm happy to report that everything in the front cabinet was in place and unbroken when we arrived :-)  Right now we're at Park of the Sierras (an Escapees park) in Coarsegold, CA.  We plan to spend the Christmas holiday here and then we have a couple of repairs to tend to on the road before returning to Rocklin in early January.