by Shawn Michael Hickman
There are few home improvement projects that can be done which will add more value to your property than a kitchen makeover. The price you pay for new kitchen cabinets can be recovered when you go to sell your house. Stock cabinets which are sold at all home improvement stores can be installed by do-it-yourselfers and they will even provide you with a computer design on how to best utilize your space.
The work of a correct and regular writer is a garden accurately formed and diligently planted, varied with shades, and scented with flowers; the composition of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend their branches, and pines tower in the air, interspersed sometimes with weeds and brambles, and sometimes giving shelter to myrtles and to roses; filling the eye with awful pomp and gratifying the mind with endless diversity. Other poets display cabinets of precious rarities, minutely finished, wrought into shape, and polished into brightness. Shakespeare opens a mine which contains gold and diamonds in unexhaustible plenty, though clouded by incrustations, debased by impurities, and mingled with a mass of meaner minerals.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
Before you purchase cabinets and even think about installation it is important to give a great deal of thought to the new design for your kitchen. Since you are ripping out the old cabinets, you have the ability to start with a clean slate and change all of the things that have bugged you about your current kitchen for years. Do you want more counter space or storage? Is the sink too far from the refrigerator or do you want to hang the microwave over the stove? These are all things that can easily be incorporated into your design.
Once you have figured out where the new cabinets are going to be placed, you can begin to prepare for installation. After the room is gutted, repair any damage to the walls and paint the area that will be visible behind the cabinets. It is much easier to paint before the cabinets are put up and then, if necessary, you can go back and do any touch up work that may be required. With a pencil, draw in where the cabinets are to be installed to serve as a guide for securing them in place. You also want to mark where the studs are in the wall so you know where to place the screws to hold the cabinets in place.
Whenever there’s a big war coming on, you should rope off a big field. And on the big day, you should take all the kings and their cabinets and their generals, put ‘em in the center dressed in their underpants and let them fight it out with clubs. The best country wins.
—Maxwell Anderson (1888–1959)
It is best to start by installing the wall cabinets first. Since they are being placed above the base cabinets you will have more room to maneuver. You will need a level for installation, a power screwdriver, dry wall screws, a hammer, shims and a plumb line. Start by using the plumb line to mark a line across the bottom of the wall where the bottom of the wall cabinet will be placed. Next, you want to make a T-brace out of two by fours which you will use to hold the cabinets in place while you are securing them to the wall.
Start installing the upper cabinets in the corner and work your way towards the middle of the room. Each wall cabinet should be secured to the studs in the wall with two screws on top and two on the bottom of the cabinet. Check each cabinet to insure that it is level from side to side and from front to back. If it is not level use shims to balance it out. In addition to securing the cabinets to the wall, each wall cabinet should be screwed into each other. If necessary, use a clamp to hold the cabinets together until the screws can be installed. After finishing on top, work on the bottom cabinets. Once again, it is extremely important to make sure that they are level before securing them to the studs in the wall. Shawn Hickman is the Search Marketing Manager for Sears Home Improvements. You can find more information on kitchen countertops, kitchen cabinet refacing, and kitchen remodeling at searshomeservices.com/improve.