It’s finally time to dive into our Kitchen reno!! I feel like I’ve waited a lifetime for this! If are curious about all of our plans for our kitchen, you can read all about it on THIS blog post!
We are hiring professional painters to paint the cabinets. It is a project I’ve told myself I will never try to do on my own. I know myself, and I don’t think I would be patient enough to do all the steps so that it would be durable. The painters are coming to pickup the cabinet doors and drawer fronts on Thursday! They will take them to their shop to paint them and then come back next week to paint the cabinet frames and install the doors. I can hardly wait to see the transformation!!
Anywho, since they will be coming to paint the kitchen soon we wanted to go ahead and have everything in place that we are wanting painted. We went ahead and reconfigured the wall that the refrigerator is on. You can see a picture of what it currently looks like below. There will be two large drawers where those holes are. Brett did all of this himself! I am SO impressed.
We also wanted to go ahead and have the molding installed above the cabinets. So today I want to give you a step-by-step on how we did that! This is a project that will TOTALLY transform your kitchen!! If your cabinets don’t go to the ceiling and you currently have decor placed above them… grab a ladder, remove the decor and follow the steps below! 😉 You’ll thank me later!
What we used:
primed pine boards (we used 1×3’s, 1×4’s, 1×6’s and 1×2’s)
nail gun or trim screws
wood clamps
drill/impact driver
miter saw & wood glue (if you need to make a corner piece)
Measure
We started by measuring the distance between the top of our cabinets to the ceiling. We made sure to take a few different measurements because ceilings aren’t always perfectly level. Our gap was about 12″.
Design
Then we decided on a design for our molding based on our measurements. In the photo below you will see how we stacked our boards to get to 12″.
Build
We attached the 1×6 by screwing straight through the bottom of the 1×3 into the 1×6. *Brett tip* Keep your wood clamped throughout this entire project!
We also made sure that the 1×6 was placed 1 5/8″ from the “front” of the 1×3. This ensured that the overhang would be flush with the cabinet door fronts.
Then, we attached the next board in our line up! We nailed a 1×2 into the 1×6. We made sure that it was pushed all the way to the front of the molding, as shown in the photo below.
The next one was the trickiest! The next board to attach was a 1×4 on its side. We clamped it in place so that it wouldn’t move, drilled pilot holes at an angle on both ends (pictured below), and then secured with trim screws.
We also nailed at an angle from the front of the 1×4 through the 1×2. We used 1 1/2″ nails instead of our normal 2″ nails to minimize them poking through the back of the molding. BUT, it’s okay if they come through the back. No one will ever see 😉
Back to easy pieces! YAY! We nailed the next 1×2, pushed all the way to the front again, and then nailed the last 1×3. We left a half inch overhang for this last piece to give a stacked effect.
Install
It was time to install! We lifted it into place and used a level on the front to make sure the bottom 1×3 was flush with the cabinet doors.
Then, we nailed into the tops of the cabinet fronts at an angle. We also nailed into the walls and ceiling.
Corner Molding
If you have a space above your cabinets where you need to make a molding piece with a corner, here are a few things we did!
We followed all steps above, going one level at a time, but this time attaching two mitered boards together. To attach them, we used wood glue, miter clamps and trim screws, in that order.
Read about having our kitchen cabinets painted HERE!