Anyone here who has installed new upper kitchen cabinets single handed ? I'm wondering if I should install the lower cabinets first and use them to block & raise the upper cabinets to the proper heigth ?
Thanks, Smitty
No, put a temporary ledger board at the proper height on the wall and use it and a brace. The lower cabinets in place are far more difficult to work around and invite scratched fronts, etc., while doing the uppers despite the idea of using them as support.
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I always install the uppers first ... just make sure that you take into account the proper alignment of the base cabinets whilst doing so.
Take a look at one of the kitchen projects on my projects page (IIRC, it is the 2005 one), which has a pretty good step by step of a typical kitchen cabinet installation.
Do the uppers first. I always cobble together a freestanding support out of
2x4s so that when the cabinet is placed on top it is at the correct height.
Come on guys! If you don't buy a new tool for a job you not doing the job correctly.
There are cabinet lifts available
An article in Fine Homebuilding suggested aligning/joining a run of upper cabinets with them sitting on the floor then lifting them all together as a unit and shimming between the cabinets and the wall as necessary. This ensures that the cabinets are all perfectly aligned even if the wall isn't flat.
I haven't done a kitchen yet, but it seems to make sense.
Chris
I applaud your principles, but for my next minor but awkward job I need something slightly different..
We have an 'island' of four curved-corner desks at work where all the tall people sit (we gravitated together - must be magnetism or something). The desks are a bit like these:
The boss is quite happy to pay (a smallish amount) for the wood and fixings to raise them 2-3" as long as I can make it 'look as good as the originals' and do it on my own time (since it's for me, not the company). He has explicitly ruled out 'shoving some bricks under the feet'.
The construction is a beech veneered laminate top, with steel/beech legs on the ends and a single leg at the back corner, with modesty boards joining them. Because the modesty boards lock the legs all together into a stable unit, the top just sits on them and is held on with screws and cam dowels.
My plan is to undo the top, lift it a few inches, insert matching beech risers along the top of the legs and at intervals along the (hidden) tops of the modesty boards, then fix it all back together.
The desks have tons of computers with awkward wiring, papers etc. on them and I'll be doing it in the evening, so I want to do it fairly quickly. I was wondering if there's a good way to lift the whole desktop stably to put the risers in without clearing it and putting everything back - which would add at least a half hour to each desk!
I have a car trolley jack I could use, but a single lifting point isn't going to be stable enough, I'd have thought. Any ideas?
Also, any comments about the general idea of just putting risers in?
PCPaul wrote in news:YPh1k.2806$ snipped-for-privacy@text.news.virginmedia.com:
*snip*
I've done this once or twice with a car jack and 2x4s. This was to move the desk, so it only had to get off the floor.
You might get it up far enough with a couple of screw jacks... Put one under each side (maybe with a 2x4 under the desk supports to spread the weight) and just turn one side and then the other. Put a level on the desk and try to keep it level as it goes up.
Puckdropper
Smitty,
I have installed many wall cabinets by myself. The easiest method is to install a temporary ledger board on the wall and get it leveled first. Align the top of the board where you want the bottom of the cabinet to be. Then you can set the cabinet on the board and let it support the majority of the weight of the cabinet while you fasten it in place. You'll still need to lean against the cabinet a bit to keep it from falling, but it takes very little effort. I like to find the stud locations with a studfinder and mark them on the ledger board, and above the height of the cabinet before hoisting the cabinets in place. Just makes things a little more efficient. When the cabinets are installed, unscrew the ledger board and take it down.
Of course, attaching a ledger means you'll have a few screw holes in the wall when you're done. A little spackling and a dab of paint will make them disappear easily enough, but for times when I don't want the holes, I installed my base cabinets first. Then I built a couple of small boxes the height of the distance between the base and wall cabinet. Make it just slightly shorter than you need so you can add a plywood shim or something on top. You will want to be able to remove the box when you are done installing the cabinet. :) It's easy to take out the shim then remove the box. This method also has the advantage of completely supporting the cabinet, leaving your hands free to position and fasten the cabinet.
Anthony
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