How to Add Trim to Cabinets

Posted on May 5, 2013 by John

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Hey all! Hope everyone is doing well. Had another productive weekend around here. We got a huge jump on our Pinterest Challenge project. Stay tuned for that! We posted a couple hint photos on our Instagram account.

Last week, we wrapped up our sitting room built-in. I also promised a quick post on how to add trim to cabinets to make them look more “built-in” and less free standing cabinet. The process is pretty simple and can be used on any type of cabinet. There are a number of blog posts out there about turning ikea bookshelves or stock kitchen cabinets into built-ins. Adding trim can really add some depth to their look.

Here’s how to add trim to cabinets..

We start with the baseboard molding. When I installed the cabinets, I removed the baseboard molding on the wall where the cabinet was being installed. Made things easier.

Before I add the new piece though, I’m going to add a couple thin strips of wood to the side of the cabinet. The cabinet front overhangs the sides by about 1/4″ and if I try to install the baseboard molding without a shim, it won’t look right. Adding a strip to the top and bottom help keep the molding solid against the cabinet.

The molding on the wall is cut square on the cabinet side and just butts up into the cabinet. The molding that goes on the cabinet has a coped joint on the left side and a miter joint where it meets the front. After it was installed, I caulked and painted the molding. To make this job easier, it helps to pre-paint all the trim then all you need to do is some touch-ups after it’s installed. Last thing you want to be doing is painting that close to carpet.

Now for the crown molding..

There are a couple ways to approach crown molding on cabinets. You could do option A, like John and Sherry did in their kitchen, which is to add a strip of wood on top of your cabinets. This method is perfect for already existing cabinets that don’t have a lot of width up top to accommodate the 1/2″ or so of crown molding that will need to make contact with wood.

Option B, let’s call it, is to skip the extra piece of wood and nail the crown molding right into the face frame of the cabinet. This option works if you DO have a lot of space near the top of the cabinet. In the case of our built-in, we’re going with option B. Actually, I designed the top cabinet to have that extra 1/2″ space.. another benefit of building your own stuff.

To get started, I measured about 1/2″ down from the top of the cabinet and made some pencil marks. I’m also adding a shim up here as well. Oh and if you look closely at the next picture, you can see some splintering at the edge of the plywood. That’s from using a saw blade that wasn’t as sharp as it should have been. It’s okay though, because it’s getting hidden by a shim and crown molding.

Now, how to cut crown molding… It helps if you use a special crown molding jig, which you can pick up from Amazon or Lowes. The jig keeps the molding at the right angle for cutting. What’s the right angle? Well, crown molding has two flat surfaces that are 90 degrees from one another. Both of those surfaces need to be 90 degrees on the miter saw when you cut them. Crown molding jigs help to lock the molding in that position.

You also need to cut them upside down. That can be tricky. It helps if you think about the molding and the piece you are installing it on as being upside down too. For real, find some crown molding that already installed somewhere and look at it if you were standing on the ceiling. It would look just like normal baseboard molding if you look at it from that perspective. The challenge is thinking about it like that when you are standing in front of your miter saw. It’s tricky. I’ve installed a lot of it and it still throws me for a loop. I had to buy 3 pieces of crown molding for this project because I messed up the cuts twice. It happens. Crown molding takes practice.

I’ll probably do a more intensive how-to video or a dedicated post on it as some point, but for this post I just wanted to show you the basics of adding trim to cabinets. Crown molding on walls is roughly the same, but requires a little extra work.

But seriously though, think about it upside down.

When marking the crown molding for the cuts, I like to leave the first piece long and mark it for length right on the cabinet instead of measuring it with a measuring tape. Just make a mark where it meets the front edge. Your crown molding should just touch the 1/2″ marks you made earlier, which will ensure that your molding is level… as long as your cabinet is level that is. I used a brad nailer with a 3/4″ nail for all of this work and I skipped the glue.

So that’s crown molding and baseboards on cabinets. Not too hard and it makes a world of difference.

Later this week I have a final exam and then I’m done grad school for the summer! That means a summer blog theme face lift and more outdoor projects! Only one more course in the fall too. Can’t wait.

From Cabinets to Built-Ins

Posted on April 28, 2013 by John

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Monday is my first day back to work after two wonderful weeks home with my amazing wife and two beautiful daughters. Fastest two weeks of my life. It’s amazing how a little time away from the hustle and bustle puts your life into perspective. Helps to prioritize what’s important.

Today is also the day we’re sharing the reveal of our completed built-in project. Last time we discussed this work, we shared the installation procedure and the door pulls. During my paternity break, Lisa and I managed to finish the trim work, paint and fill it with toys and books.

Let’s do a quick recap..

We started with a couple overview drawings after brainstorming on some ideas we pinned. After some thinking, we ended up shaving the width down to 48″ from 60″ to make it fit into the space a little better.

From the whole assembly drawing, we drew out the plans for the face frames and then built those using pocket screws.

With the face frames built, we filmed a video on how to make shaker style inset doors for a unique custom look. Installing the finished doors to the frame was the trickiest part of the whole process for me. Not impossible, just annoying!

After the doors were done, we moved onto the plywood box portion of the work. We used 3/4″ Birch because it’s great for paint grade projects and 3/4″ gives us a strong, sturdy cabinet. To make the plywood cutting process easier on ourselves, we drew up cut sheets.

The cabinet boxes were assembled with dados and grooves made on my table saw. I prefer grooves over pocket screws for the box portion of cabinet work due to the strength of the joint, plus the grooves help keep everything aligned.

The cabinets were assembled with some wood glue and then clamped to the face frames. I also used a biscuit jointer to keep the fasteners completely hidden (optional).

At this point in the process, both the top and bottom cabinets were essentially done. I just needed to add a plywood countertop and throw in some shelves.

After some sanding, priming and paint, it was time to install the cabinets to the wall with the help of a neighbor and add the door hardware. The cabinets were painted with the same semi-gloss latex as the trim work in the rest of our home.

The very last thing we did was tie the cabinet to the wall with baseboard and crown molding. The molding helps to transform the look of the cabinets to something more custom and built-in. It helps if you caulk the seam where the cabinet meets the wall as well. We’ll be bringing you a how-to on trimming out cabinets later this week. We just decided to jump the gun and bring you to the finish line a bit early.

Here’s what it looks like now…

The built-in is in our sitting room and it looks like we’re going to be using it for kids books and some other… stuff.

What tools do you need? You absolutely DO need the following:

1. Miter or chop saw
2. Table saw
3. Drill
4. Pocket hole kit
5. Work table and space to build it
6. Cabinet sized clamps
7. Preferably a brad nail gun
8. Circular saw
9. Straight edge or level

How much will this project cost?

Here’s what I spent on lumber and hardware (approx):
1. Doors: $32
2. Plywood: $152
3. Frame: $30
4. Shelves: $15
5. Primer: $12
6. Hardware: $20
Total: $261

I already owned the hinges and the paint and I may have left off a purchase or two accidentally, but you get the idea. Definitely under $300.

How much would it cost to buy instead of building?

Good question. This cabinet set from Pottery Barn is somewhat comparable. It’s almost 2 feet shorter though. Costs about $1800 not including shipping. Yikes.

(via Pottery Barn)

So hopefully, after reading this series, you have an understanding of what it takes to make a custom built-in yourself… from scratch (pun intended). Don’t be afraid to build something from a drawing you make yourself. Yes, I’m planning on uploading the plans for this project this summer and all the projects I’ve done so far, but you don’t need those.

It does take some experience and a modest amount of carpentry skills to pull off, but at the end of the day, a built-in is just a couple of cabinet boxes. You can build a box.

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Simple Homemade Jig for Cabinet Door Pulls

Posted on April 24, 2013 by John

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I’m a big fan of paternity leave. It’s nice. The new baby is great! I honestly thought I’d have a little more free time to work on some home projects, but I’ve been swamped with school work and family baby time. No complaints! I did manage to knock a few items off my “to-do” list and I’ll be sharing them as we go.

In the meantime, we’ve got another built-in update. We last left off with the bottom and top cabinets installed. Now it’s time for some door hardware.

Instead of going out and buying some nice bling for this cabinet, we decided to just reuse the drawer pulls from our daughter’s Ikea Hemnes dresser. The knobs are dark, simple and look pretty good with the white cabinets. Since the cabinets don’t have any holes drilled for door pulls yet, I whipped up a simple, homemade jig for installing cabinet door pulls.

The jig is made from three small pieces of 1/2″ thick plywood. The wood is glued and nailed together. These are a cinch to make, can be done with just about any thickness of wood and are a perfect project to use up scrap wood.

To use the jig, you just put a mark on it where you want the door pulls to be located and then drill a hole. I wanted my pulls about an 1″ from the door edge and 2.75″ down from the top.

To select the drill bit size, I just pick a drill bit that is slightly bigger in diameter than the screw that comes with the drawer pull.

Then all you have to do is hold the jig over the corner of the door making sure it butts up against both edges of the jig.

Now you can either drill through the jig and the door or just mark the door with a pen and drill it separately. I prefer marking the door with a pen and then drilling it. It allows me to verify the exact hole placement more precisely.

Because the jig has a wide top and back, it can be turned around and used on both doors.

With both holes drilled, I just add my door pulls and we’re done.

You can actually buy cabinet door jigs, like this one, but it’s just as easy to make one yourself.

Next up will be the trim work we’ve added to make the cabinets look more “built-in” and less “oh those are just a couple of cabinets.”

Was going to try to post this last night, but then Lisa and I watched the first Hobbit film. I loved it (better than the first Lord of the Rings movie, IMHO). Lisa, not so much.

Coming Soon: A Custom TV Stand

Posted on April 10, 2013 by John

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Sorry if it seems like we’ve been blog slacking lately. Things are busy with baby #2 almost here. I suspect a media blackout for a few days is forthcoming. I’m hoping to sneak an instagram pic or two of our newborn so stay tuned. No promises though. If you haven’t noticed, Lisa and I are sticklers about keeping our kids off of the internet so we won’t be posting about the delivery or anything. Sorry.

The rest of the week I’m going to be wrapping up the trim on the built-in cabinets to make it look more “built-in” and less free-standing “cabinet.” I’m planning a thorough How-to on adding crown molding to cabinetry, similar to what YHL just did with some variations in the process. Since this is a slow week around here otherwise, I thought I’d reveal our next build project. We’re going to be building a custom TV stand to match our built-in.

I’ve been browsing Pinterest for a few ideas in terms of layout and came across a couple ideas.

I like the look of the baseboard molding wrapping around the bottom, but to keep it similar to the built-in I’d skip the round cut outs. We’re not sure if we’re going to have the electronics exposed or not. We only have a Playstation in the sitting room, so it’s not like we need a ton of open shelving or anything.

We’re planning on keeping some DVDs for our daughter (and some first person shooter games for me) in there.

Just like with the built-in project, we’re going cover the entire build from start to finish. This time however, I’m adding a twist. I’m going to try to build the stand out of what material I have left over from the built-in. Specifically, I have a good amount of plywood leftover and I don’t want to buy anymore. I’ll need more poplar, but that’s not a big deal. Plus it’s relatively cheap compared to the plywood.

So that’s what’s coming to a blog near you. It won’t be as exciting as the Star Trek sequel, but I hope we’ll all get something out of it.

Any exciting projects on your horizon? What summer movies are you looking forward to the most? I’m looking forward to Star Trek 2, Superman and Iron Man 3. No rom-coms.

Installing the Built-ins

Posted on April 7, 2013 by John

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Hey everybody! Hope you all had a great weekend. We’ve made some major progress on our built-in project which, if you follow us on Instagram, you may have already gotten a peek of it. We still have a little bit of finishing work to do yet, but we expect to wrap that up by the end of the week. So let’s get right to it. Here’s how we installed our built-ins.

We started with the wall where the cabinet was going to be located. I had my neighbor, Mike, give me a hand with installing it since Lisa is out of commission at the moment. Being 39+ weeks pregnant will do that.

I marked the center width of the wall, the stud locations and drew some vertical and horizontal lines to index the location of the outlet.

To get the bottom cabinet to butt up against the wall, we removed the baseboard molding with a box cutter and a pry bar and transferred the outlet marks to the back of the cabinet.

To cut the hole for the outlet, I used a small drill bit to drill a hole in each corner from the back and then used a larger one from the front. Large drill bits tend to burst whatever they go through, so by drilling from the front first any bursting will be on the back.

Then it’s just a matter of centering the bottom cabinet onto the wall and using some long drywall screws with finish washers. The finish washers keep the screws from digging into the wood.

The top cabinet sits on the bottom and gets secured to the wall with a few screws as well. I waited until this point to install the doors.