OK, here’s the scene – our house is old, and we’re re-doing the kitchen. The longest wall, on which there are two windows, bows outward a few inches (I’m not exactly sure how much, but let’s say 4″ at the top – that’s probably realistic). I’ll have two short banks of upper cabs against this wall – one at the far left in a corner, and one between the two windows, roughly centered on the wall, and over the range.
When I design and install these cabinets, what’s the best approach to dealing with the not-straight wall? I’m building the cabs myself, so I’ve got all the flexibility in the world, but I don’t want it to look completely crapulous. My original intention was to have the faces of the upper cabinets be a consistent distance from the edge of the countertop, and to account for the bow in the wall by making the sides of the cabinets deeper than necessary and then scribing them as needed. That could make hanging them more difficult, as I’d intended to do the French Cleat thing.
Any and all advisin’ is appreciated – and it’s my house, in case that’s wondered.
Thanks –
did
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Forget about what the wall does at the top, what does it do where the bottoms of the cabs will fall? No one's gonna see the top.
One option is to shim out the wall and hang 3/8" drywall to straighten it up, adding "niches" at the windows. (Be sure to add anchorages for the cabs before applying the DW.) In fact, you wouldn't need to DW where the cabs will go -- you could even install the DW after hanging the cabs if you had a suitable trim scheme to hide the DW edge.
I suppose I should elaborate - for our kitchen rehab, we hired a guy to do the demo, and then rebuild up to mudded, taped, and sanded drywall. We took over from there with flooring, paint, cabinets, etc. So the walls are drywalled, and I ain't opening 'em up again, no way no how. I've got enough drywall dust in my house as it is! So any solution has to go over the drywall.Also, my cabinets are frameless, with full-overlay doors. I'm making them from 3/4" Baltic birch ply, and considering aluminum-framed glass doors on the uppers (I can get those for very decent prices through my work). I'm not sure I'd be able to do a 1/4" side panel and cover the edge of it with the door, but I'll ruminate on that - maybe do the exposed cabinet side in 1/2" ply and then add the 1/4" face panel later. Gonna be a lot more work than the lowers were, that's fer sure - our guy left us with a nice, flat, newly-framed floor...did<!---->Cure Diabetes - Whitefish, Montana, 2007!<!---->
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Well that's a horse of a different color.
4"? And no effort was made to correct?
Damn. A dummy smack now would seem redundant.
J. D. ReynoldsHome Improvements
See, that's part o' the problem. The wall was visibly out of whack before, and it was easy to see why - lots of wierd old construction in there. That all got pulled and cleaned up, and then evidently our guy didn't check anything before he did the drywall thing. I'm not all that concerned; I know I can correct for it. I would have preferred a little more care there (and in other matters), but it's still a huge improvement over our old kitchen (which would have been a contender on one of those Worst Kitchen In America shows), without being a budget-buster or getting out of line with house values in our neighborhood.did<!---->Cure Diabetes - Whitefish, Montana, 2007!<!---->
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With frameless, I always panel the ends of cab. runs anyway. I cut the panel to go from the wall to a hair past the face of door. I do the samething on the bases and DW opening. The kick dies into the base panel and on the uppers, it covers the door edge. For your situation, hang the uppers and install an oversized panel to reach the wall. Although, it does seem a shame that this wasn't corrected before drywall, I'm sorry to mention that because I'm sure its a bit of a sore point at this stage of the game.
I wouldn'd make any more complicated than it has to be. The easiest thing to do is to build each run of cabinets as a single unit. Then hang it plumb and level on the wall. To cover the gaps on the sides of the cabinet, use 1/4 material to scribe to the wall and contact cement it to the sides of the cabinet. I wouldn't worry about the gap in the bottom. You might notice it but no one else will. If it were my house I would rip it down to the studs and start over.
I wouldn't try and make up for a wall that far out on the cabinets.
Open that one wall, and plumb it with firring or sister the studs.
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
did
whenever I build cabinets I add 1/2" for scribe, obviously thats not gonna cut it in your situation!
Add whatever you need to hide the bow in the wall and scribe it in. Easiest way to deal with the problem.
Even if your going to hang the boxes from french cleats you can still do this with the scribe as part of the box.
Install your lowers first, set the cab to be scribed on a box(make something cheap) and position it where it goes - basically its positioned on the box, not the wall, scribe the box end, hang the box on the cleat and presto, your done.
this is no different then if your wall was out 1/4" over the height of the room, just make accomidations to fit the situation.
Doug