Right? @holly63 basically described my entire relationship with technology. It's either perfectly fine or actively trying to give me a heart attack, no in-between.

Actually read a blog post from a guy in Portland who restores old kitchens. He said most modern hinges have a different setback measurement than vintage ones. Something like 3/8 inch off. Explains why your doors sit weird. Might be worth hunting down some NOS parts on eBay instead.

Oh man, that's so relatable! It's funny how we build up these mental rules about how stuff works and then one day we realize we were just overthinking everything. I've noticed this same thing happens with like, so many everyday objects - microwaves, remote controls, even car dashboards. We assume they're super complex but really they just use the same basic logic over and over. It's like once you understand one simple version of something, the whole category of things clicks into place.

Is that not just how EVERYTHING goes though? I got a new coffee maker last year and for TWO MONTHS I kept unplugging it every night because my old one had a safety issue. My brain was just on autopilot copy-pasting the same routine. It's like our minds hate to admit when something is actually SOLVED and we can just let it run. The sad part is that 20 minutes a week adds up - that's over 13 hours of your life just rewriting the same stuff. That's like a whole work shift you could have used for anything else. Glad you caught it though, most people never stop to ask why they're doing the thing they're doing.

Yeah I read somewhere that old school tile guys swear by the manual cutters for a reason.