Kitchen Help

If you are planning to install kitchen cabinets in  the kitchen of your dreams , do yourself a favor and measure  the ceiling height to  determine that you will  have room to allow for any  trim or moldings that you  will be installing to the cabinets.

 The first thing that you will want to do is measure to the ceiling and  write down the dimension . If you have 8’ ceilings and the  dimension is under ½” of 8’, then you should not have a problem if you have ordered  42” tall wall cabinets. Now, if you are going to install any type of crown or moldings to  the cabinets,  make sure you hold the wall cabinets at the appropriate height to allow for  the height of the molding .

Now, you need to consider   if you are installing  crown molding  against the cabinets. If you are installing cabinets with a full overlay door,  you will need to place some wood fastened to the top  of the wall cabinets to allow for the crown to rest against and give you some solid wood behind the crown to nail to .

However, if the ceiling in your kitchen  is over  nine feet  tall, then you should be able to nail or screw this piece of wood after the cabinets are hung . But, if you have 8’ ceilings and are using 42” tall wall cabinets , then  you will need to attach the wood to  every cabinet top,  making sure that it is even with the front of the cabinet before you install it  .  Normally, a one inch thick piece of wood works perfectly  .  This will leave about one quarter of an inch  above the top of the full overlay door toconceal the seam between the top of the cabinet and this strip of wood .

Now, if you find that the ceiling is not perfectly level , then you may find that you will have to add another trim board first before you apply the crown molding , which holds true for any ceilings that are out of level greater than one half inch .

As you hang the wall cabinets level and find that there are larger gaps between the top of the cabinets and the ceiling at one end of the run of cabinets and would install the crown tight against the ceiling, then you are going to find that at the other end of the run of cabinets that the crown will not touch the ceiling, with the gap size depending on how out of level the ceiling truly is.

This is where you will need to install a flat coordinated wood trim molding first to the cabinets and then install the crown against this piece of molding . You will see a difference in reveal on the flat piece of molding, but  your molding will now be able to be held tight to the ceiling, covering any of the gaps  . This happens quite a lot, especially in older homes. This is why it is very important to measure the distance to the ceiling in variousspots of the kitchen once you have  established the level lines for the cabinets on the walls  .

 More than likely, your designer will not be able to pick up the subtle difference during their preliminary measurements  .  These situations crop up more often than not, and can’t be foreseen unless you  go through this process  before the cabinets are ordered. More than likely in this case , you will have need your supplier  to order you the materials to fix the problem , or you can visit the local home improvement store and match some stain with the coordinating species of wood  .

Whatever the case may be , it is  imperative for  you to check these measurements before you start installing kitchen cabinets.