Kitchen Cabinet problems????

[Jim Hoelzel]

Hi All. I am having MORE problems tonight with my base cabinets. I have only four that run into and from a corner. I have the sink, blind corner, small drawer/door, and large 3 drawer in that order. I have mounted the blind corner cabinet first, then the small drawer/door. I then level them up from front to back, and side to side. When I have them all installed, I have a gap that is about 1/4 inch in the front! ( I know what you are thinking, "that's not to bad?") But the cabinets that I have built have a built in leg at each place a cabinet meets another, and the toe kick is not seperate from the case.It actually helps show the leg outset.

So how in the world do I hide or get rid of the gap??? I have no problem taking them all apart AGAIN, as I have already done that twice today

Thanks,

Jim

[Ben Grunow]

Jim, once the first cabinet is set level in both directions and screwed to the wall you work away from it. Place the next cabinet next to the first and shim it so the faces of the two are flush and there are no gaps for the entire height. Remove the doors from the adjacent lower cabs and clamp the face frames or plywood sides together holding the faces as flush as possible using two clamps as high and low as you can get them. Then pre drill and screw them together, hide these screws behind the hinges if possible. Then go about levelling and shimming the 2nd cab and screw it to the wall when it is level and the tops of both are in the same plane (long level touches the tops of the plywood sides of both cabinets).

Some store bought cabinets can be so out of square that perfectly level is not possible but this is very rare. The tops should be flat so the counters are flat (especially if they are going to be granite) and wont crack over time. Use good levels and take your time.

Hope that made sense. PM if more help is required.

[Don Selke]

Diddo on Bens instructions, could not put it any better. When drilling through the face frames to fasten the cabinets together you can plug the holes, sand and paint or stain and varnish. If you can put the holes behing the hinges, do so. I drill 3/8" holes partially into the face frame then a hole the size of the screw shank as a pilot hole to the next faceframe.

DS

[Steve Clardy]

Wondering where your 1/4" gap is

Gap under toekick? Or cab to cab?

[Jim Hoelzel]

Wondering where your 1/4" gap is

Gap under toekick? Or cab to cab?

I am sorry. Yeah the gap is under the toe kick. The hard wood floor is about a 1/4 inch high a long the wall, which makes the outside of the toe kick high.

Jim

[Scott Banbury]

That's what quarterround shoe molding is for.

[Steve Clardy]

Ok. Either cut your legs off [full length legs] at an angle, which is lots of work, or, what I do.
Temporarily shim under the toe kick. Screw cabs to the wall.
Then mark and cut those shims off so they don't stick out, and trim the toekick out.
Normally 1/4 round is used, or just 1/8x3/4 scrib strip.

[Ben Grunow]

Another, less desirable, more wasteful and somewhat humiliating option would be to remove the flooring to the point where the cabinets would just cover the edge of the floor by an inch or 2. Then the cabs could sit lower against the wall and flush at the front. You probly already have the outline on the floor so cutting a couple of inches back from it would be easy.

The real "right" way to do this is like Steve said and scribe the cabinets into the floor by planing the bottom of the cabinets to match the slope of the floor (take 1/4" at back to 0 at front) but this is a lot of work. Might be worth it if you just have 4 cabs and a power plane?

Good luck and let us know what you did. Ben

[Jim Bell]

When leveling are you leveling from the highest point in the kitchen where the cabinets will actually be sitting? Once I establish that all else levels off that piece reguardless of which piece it is.I work side to side front to back and corner to corner. I run a level To all cabinets that are within 6" of one another so all counter tops are the same height to one another wrather than the floor. I hope this makes sense and helps. I'm remodeling my own home and I'm really tired.
Jim