Cupboards in Cumberland

Cumberland, Maine is bucolic, an idyll of pastoral open lands with Gothic farmhouses atop rolling hills across the horizon.  The Levittown mass-produced suburbs circa 1950 passed by Cumberland, but in 2024, on the fringe of the Portland metro-area, it is a highly desirable place.  

More than 21 Million people live within a half-day’s drive of Cumberland, and with Zoom telecommuting, the desire to live on the rocky coast of Maine has dramatically grown.  Maine has a housing shortage: 80,000 new homes are needed by 2030 but the median income is $63,200 while the median home price is $414,000.  The way of life known for generations seems no longer sustainable.  

Couples from away buy homes for $3 Million and then gut and renovate at a cost upwards of $2.5 Million.  Castles by the sea, monuments to themselves, grand is the vanity, employment all but guaranteed for the trades. I speak from direct personal experience.  

Kitchens are the hearth of their home, and people spend upward of $3,000 per linear foot, easily more than $100,000 in total on a kitchen.  I have been told of couples gutting and redoing their kitchen every four years.  

Recently I was contacted by a Cumberland resident whose family has lived there for generations.  The kitchen cabinets were built of pine, by his Uncle, sometime in the 1950s.  They were in sturdy enough condition, and only the drawer slides were the issue.  I drove north to take a look.  

Arguably the cabinet repair’s cost – at 6 feet in length – was upwards of $6,000; I could have stood firm that the entire cabinet needed replacement.  But I admired my Client’s frugality, which reminded me of the home where I grew up, built with cabinets of chip board and 1/2” plywood door and drawer faces; 1960-built cabinets that served seven people for 63 years.  As any New England Quaker well knows, simplicity, frugality and common sense are principles to live by.  So I agreed to solve the problem, rather than demolish and rebuild.    

At a specialty hardware store I was able to find a replacement slide and when I returned was pleasantly surprised that the new slide was an exact match in all aspects.  The entire job took 45 minutes to repair eight drawers.  More importantly only 8.5 ounces of recyclable metal entered the waste stream.  

If I pursued rational self interest I would have charged at least one half-day, or more; I had taken the time to drive north twice for a repair that ultimately amounted to little work.  But “rational self interest” seems just a euphemism for “selfish greed” and just because the market will bear a cost does not make it right that I should charge same.  

My invoice amounted to $118, parts and labor included, an almost laughable sum.  Thus was saved $5,882 and I established a long-term client, a decent kind man.  Fair is fair.  All is well that ends well.