I went through the process of raising my cabinets to the ceiling all by myself in early November, using an emergency car jack:
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| Raising my cabinets was free, all I used was a drill, a car jack, and some items to prop the cabinets when they were unstable. |
And now: building shelves under the cabinets!
It was so easy! I bought raw particle board shelving from Lowe's (An 8' board was $7); It took two 8' boards and one 4' board - the boards plus all the square dowels were $31.36. The boards are 1' deep (which was the depth of my overhead cabinets). Lowe's will cut them to length for you - just measure the length of each cabinet and cut to size!
Here's the little square dowels to attach my shelves to the bottom of my cabinets. I cut these to length with a jigsaw, depending on how far I wanted the shelves beneath my existing cabinets.
My kitchen is a little weird, in that the laminate backsplash went all the way up to the bottom of the cabinets (before they were raised). Once I raised them, I had a 3/4" lip of backsplash I could rest the back of my shelves on.
For kitchens without that little perk, you can just use dowels parallel along the back - as I used along the front - and it would work fine.
So, I first glued the shelves to the laminate lip with wood glue, then using a level, I screwed the dowels to the bottom of the cabinets:
And then, using the level, I traced where the dowel placement on the shelf should be. It's easier to make sure it's straight, drill a pilot hole, then screw the dowel to the shelf.
First shelf done!
Second shelf done!
I did this all around my kitchen.
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| Sorry the kitchen is a mess! Everything was out of the cabinets for me to work. |
Caulk the heck out of your shelves, all seams, top/bottom, where the dowels meet the shelves, etc.
Caulk is the trick to making it look built in.
Next step, painting!!
