Hi There,
We recently completed a home project that we have wanted to do for the last couple years, we added stacked cabinets in our kitchen and extended our trim all the way to the ceiling. I did film a video of the process that will give you a look at the whole process but I thought it would be helpful to write out all the steps here as well.
The back story on our kitchen: When we purchased our home 2.5 years ago our kitchen looked like this: brown wood cabinets, white appliances and no backsplash
Pretty quickly after moving in we painted the cabinets white, I also filmed a video on how we did that here. That left the space looking like this:
Over time we also installed a backsplash, changed out the hardware, light and eventually got new appliances, leaving the space looking like this:
Our "last" project was filling in the large space above our cabinets, we actually have very high ceilings in our kitchen but only had 24" cabinets. This left an additional 24" between the cabinets and the ceiling. The gameplan was to add a layer of stacked cabinets, these cabinets were 12" tall, leaving 12" left between the ceiling and cabinets. This is the area we decided to fill in with trim. Here is a look at the process
Step 1- Buy, Paint and Install Stacked Cabinets:
I purchased these stock cabinets from Lowes for all cabinets except one that was an odd size. I actually purchased them one at a time as budget allowed and painted them with the same paint as the rest of our kitchen cabinets. Once they were all painted it was time to install them.
To Install:
We took off the original crown molding at the top of the cabinets, then found the studs that our existing cabinets were installed in and simply drilled them into the same studs. ** However once we got all the cabinets up there we realized our wall was actually uneven so we had to put wood shims behind certain cabinets to make them all line up. I have heard an uneven wall is very common so just keep this in mind*
Step 2- Build Box
Most people would likely be able to skip this step but all of our cabinets were the correct size to buy stock cabinets, except one in the corner. So we decided to just build a box in that space that we could use to display decor and cookbooks. This was probably a far from professional job but we built the box with MDF. We built the box in place since again the wall was uneven and we could tell building it elsewhere and trying to install it wouldn't match up. I used wood glue to put the box together and then used nails to secure and drilled into the studs.
Step 3- Wood fill seams
After getting all the stacked cabinets up I used wood putty to fill in the seams between the lower and upper cabinet rows to make it look more seamless. Let it partially dry and then sand to smooth. Eventually I painted over these seams as well.
Step 4- Build Frame for Extended Trim
We decided that we wanted to build a small frame from the cabinets to the ceiling to make installing our trim much easier and more secure. We simply used scrap pieces of wood and drilled them to the ceiling then ran 2x4's vertically attaching to the pieces on the ceiling. Then this would be what we attached the MDF sheet to directly
Step 5- Prep MDF- Attach to frame
We purchased a sheet of .5" MDF and cut it to size to fit the space between our cabinets and ceiling. Once we had cut it we used liquid nails on the frame to get it attached. Once it was up there we added some nails to secure it to the frame.
Step 6- Prep and Attach new Molding
Once your MDF sheet is up it is time for the trim, now what you do here all comes down to preference. I wanted a big chunky piece of crown molding at the top, so I bought the biggest piece I could find at Lowes. Then we also added an additional piece of trim to the lower section of the MDF. I love how it turned, the molding and trim brought the whole look together and made it look like a custom kitchen.
Step 7- Sand, Putty & Paint
After everything has been built and attached it is time to give any rough areas a sand, fill in any holes, nails or seams then paint. I ended up needing to do two full coats of paint and one coat of touch up.
Here is the current look of the kitchen, we absolutely love how it turned out. It completely transformed our kitchen for a low cost and a minimal time commitment. We worked on this one evening and one morning so less then one full day of work minus some of the painting I did later.
Cost Breakdown:
-Unfinished cabinets (4)- $200- we got some on sale
- 1 sheet .5" MDF- $24
-(2) 2x4s- $7
-Crown molding- $22
-Trim- $4
TOTAL: 257 :)
The last thing we would love to do is buy new cabinet doors for some of the top cabinets with the rounded molding at the top to match the rest, here is a little look at what it would look like
