Hanging Kitchen Cabs -- Underneath or Inside?

[Jeff B]

Do professional installers generally attach the bottom of wall cabs from underneath or inside just above the bottom shelf? It probably doesn't matter either way, but which looks the "cleanest"?

--Jeff

[Joseph Meehan]

I can't tell you about anyone but me.

I "attach" them to the wall from the inside.

I almost always use a board attached to the wall to help support them and align them when putting them up, but that comes down.

I "attach them to each other from the bottom.

Depending on the application I may use a trim strip under them on the wall.

[Rick Blaine]

I thought of this after I installed 4 cabinets in my garage this weekend. Although I used a level and tried very carefuly to maintain a plumb line, I still ended up with a 1/4" curve over 8 feet.

Then I slapped my head when I came up with the same idea.

-- "Tell me what I should do, Annie." "Stay. Here. Forever." - Life On Mars

[Red Green]

"Joseph Meehan" wrote in news:475d5572$0$8826$ [e-mail]:

I have a hard time finding an 8/10 ft board that is straight enough for this. :-) ...but that's not really funny.

[Jeff]

We had our kitchen professionally done. Mounted from the inside. Fastened a 2x4 on the wall to rest the cabinets on. The workers spent a lot of time carefully checking to make sure the cabinets were plumb measuring different directions with a large level. The inserted small shims where necessary and gradually tightened the screws on the inside of the cabinets that held them to the wall. This would often take 10 minutes per cabinet. Considering they do this for a living, it shows the care that must be taken to do it right.

[aemeijers]

Depends how the cabinet carcass is framed. Some of the cheaper ones only have 2 rails across the back, one on the bottom edge, and one at the top, with the back panel being cheap pressboard. For those, I'd put in the top screws, take down the ledger board, and then screw the bottoms, shimming as I went. If the face frames were Real Wood, I'd put one into each adjacent cabinet, sideways through the face frame.

On a real cabinet with a real wood back, I'd put the screws wherever I could that would show the least.

(Most of my cabinet-hanging was in cheap-ass apartments, so that is where most of my experience is.)

-- aem sends...

[SteveB]

Some cabinets are equipped with cleats. This is a one by that is miter cut. One half is mounted to the wall, the other to the cabinet. The cabinet can be hung on the cleat, and adjusted until just perfect. Many other ways to get them up straight. This one makes it easy, as the cabinet hangs there by gravity, and can be slid sideways, or all can be mounted until perfect, then the permanent screws shot into the appropriate strip of cleat.

Steve