First cabinet installation!

Electrical, plumbing, and drywall done, ceiling painted, walls painted, floor installed...  The kitchen is now a blank canvas, ready for cabinets.  Hard to believe.

If you'll remember way back, early in the blog, we're adding a section of wall and base cabinets, and countertop to the north side of the kitchen.  36" wide, 15" wide, and 36" wide cabinets.  I decided to start here, since these cabinets are a straight run, and would be the simplest.  Start with the easy, learn how they install, then go on to the harder, main section.


I'm using one of our old cabinets, with a plywood top, as a temporary workbench of sorts in the middle of the kitchen.  It is working quite nicely, and beats working on the ground.

Sarah reminded the cabinet that it was temporary, and not to get used to it.

It is recommended to start with the upper cabinets, as the wider base cabinets aren't in the way at that point, and they're easier to install that way. I'm all for easier.  IKEA wall cabinets have a galvanized steel suspension rail, what appears to be somewhat like a french cleat system.  You screw the rail to the studs, and slide 2 special bolts per cabinet onto the rail.  Line them up, bolts go through the mounting holes in the upper left and right side of each cabinet.

I used Wall Dog cabinet mounting screws to mount the rail.  Each screw, when screwed into a stud, can support 250lbs.  The rail for these cabinets landed on 6 studs, so the rail should theoretically support 1500lbs worth of cabinets.



I ran into a slight snag in that my row of cabinets (4" filler, 36" cabinet, 15" cabinet, and 36" cabinet) was 91" long, and the rail was only 80".  Because of where the cabinets and studs lined up on the rail, it was simply a matter of cutting the rail in half, and mounting it with the rail gap between the mounting holes of the middle cabinet.  Each 40" section of rail screws into 3 studs, and supports 3 cabinet bolts (one and a half cabinets).  The hardest part was making sure both sections of rail were not only level, but level with each other.  I ended up sticking my 4' level tight against the first rail, and pinning it to the wall with a couple of nails.  Position the 2nd rail on the end where it needs to go, and screw it down.

Rail gap is hidden behind this middle cabinet.

Because the cabinets are flush against the wall on the right side, I wanted to bump them away from the wall to allow the doors to fully open.  Since the door panels are around 3 1/2" wide, I decided to use a strip of the toekick, which is around 4" tall, or in this case, wide.  I used a couple of L brackets, and mounted the filler strip to the side of the right-side wall cabinet.

Rear view of the filler mounted to the wall cabinet.

Front view of the filler strip.

Hanging the cabinets is as easy as picking it up, lining up the bolts with the mounting brackets, setting them on, and putting the nut on.  Once the cabinets are all hung, you line them up, clamp them, drill through one of the peg/hinge/drawer rail holes, and screw the cabinets together.  Tighten the nuts on the mounting brackets, and you're done!

The base cabinets were similar, minus the mounting rail.  In the toekick box is another unfinished long piece of MDF that you screw to the wall at 4 5/16" (A nice simple 11cm for you metric folks).  I took my time, because the more level it is, the more level your cabinets will be.  The back of the base cabinet rests on there, and the adjustable legs sit on the ground in the front.  In my case, our vinyl floor is Armstrong Cushionstep, and 1/8" thick.  The floor instructions say that the cabinet legs shouldn't be on the vinyl itself, so I marked and cut holes so the feet could sit directly on the underlayment.  The toekick will cover up the legs.

6th leg hole is not shown.

I used little 3/4" long wood screws to hold the IKEA feet on, since they're likely to fall off while moving the cabinet into place.  Then it's a matter of setting the back of the cabinets onto the rail, and adjusting the feet until it's level front to back, and side to side.

With the upper cabinets,  the rail had holes all along it, so mounting it to studs wasn't a problem.  However, with the base cabinets, none of the mounting holes lined up with my studs.  It's not a huge problem, as the weight of the base cabinets rests on the bottom ledger board, but you still want them secured to the wall as best as you can.  I used anchors similar to the following:

Screw those into the drywall through the mounting brackets, and then run your screw into that to hold it all in place.

Taadaa!

Monday night was the upper cabinets, and Tuesday night was the lower cabinets.  A couple more drawers and doors, a toekick, a countertop, side cover panels, a deco strip along the bottom of the upper cabinets, and cabinet lighting, and they'll be done!  Yeah, that's all.  Oh yes, and then the rest of the kitchen.  But we have cabinets!

Bonus cat picture of Charlie imagining she's a lot smaller than she really is.