DIY Network

My wife and I have 8-year-old twin boys.  We have nicknamed them “Thing One and Thing Two”.  They have become very independent getting cups out of an upper cabinet.  Instead of using a chair to reach the cups, they pull themselves onto the counter by using an upper cabinet door.  This repeated behavior finally took its toll.  The cabinet and the door weren’t destroyed, but the pilot holes were stripped so badly, the screws won’t hold.  I could have put in larger screws, but this was not the first time I fixed the door.

Fixing a stripped screw hole is easy and cheaper then replacing a cabinet.  Put a drop of wood glue on the tip of a toothpick and put it into the stripped hole.  Repeat this until you have packed the hole tight with toothpicks.  Let the glue dry overnight.  Use a utility knife to cut off the ends of the toothpicks extruding from the hole and then re-drill your pilot holes.  Now the cabinet doors can be rehung.  To keep this from happening again we have moved the cups to a base cabinet but the boys have found other things they want from the upper cabinets.  I think wood glue and toothpicks might be a good investment for the future.

Warren Seegers is the producer of the home improvement TV reality show The Edifice Venture. He was also a finalist on DIY Network’s Stud Finder 2009.