The use of scribe molding is very common. The alternative is to have extended stiles and rails that can be scribed in the field. However, that raises the price of the install tremendously as you need an expert who actually can scribe to fit the wonkyness of a not level wall or ceiling. You can't even find but a half dozen people anymore who even know what scribing is much less how to do it. Thus the alternative is to cover the gaps from the unlevel walls and ceiling with scribe molding.

Thanks. This one had a plate rail screwed to the bottom of the soffit, with cove mold under it.

Is the flat strip between each carcass normal?

Anyone else?

Filler strips are to maintain proper clearances for doors and drawers to be able to open around obstacles like sidewalls and appliances. Occasionally filler strips will be used with lower cost cabinetry that isn't available in sizes needed. For instance, if you really need a 21" cabinet to fit a spot, but the stock cabinet doesn't come in a 21", you can use an 18" with a 3" filler.

High quality custom cabinetry generally does not use fillers or scribe molding. They use extended stiles and rails. Even some semi custom lines can use the extended stiles and rails. But, as I explained above, you have to find someone who actually can scribe things to fit.

I looked on houzz and the kitchens here and never can see a close up to see how they are finished out. The original cabinets in this house are supposed to be custom. They are a little better than the ones we had made to match when we moved in. Those were joined to the old with extended rails. But the old ones have edge banding strips covering the line where the cabinets are joined.

It's frustrating because I don't want to put trim back there, I'd like for it to be more or less seamless.

You can float out the ceiling with mud or replace the drywall so that it's level. If you get your ceilings and walls flat, plumb, and level as possible your cabinets will fit better. My dad had to fix all the walls in his girlfriend's condo because they were so bad the cabinets couldn't be attached properly! Drywall is easier to fix than wood, imho.
Renee

We have trim moulding on our cabinets installed last month. They are in the kitchen but not in the laundry room we also had done. When I noticed it and asked the contractor he said they usually only install it if the gaps are more than 1/8". We may purchase it ourselves and add them to the laundry room cabinets so they match up.

hosenemesis, it's the soffit that seems to be off, but since we're not taking down all the cabinets, I don't think I'm even going to try to fix that. I'll just try to find some trim that looks better than the original.

I just wondered if other people had so much cover up trim in their kitchens, and how they made it look good.

GreenDesigns, I know at least 2 people who know how to scribe cabinets to the wall and/or soffit. The biggest problem is getting framers to crown the studs and plumb the walls. Which is what you need to start with.
I scribe any cabinet I make and install. Don't believe in using cove moulding to cover gaps. If things are done right there are no gaps.
Filler strips are much the same. If one uses stock cabinets, it happens. But for custom work the stiles should be scribed to the wall. With no gaps!

I'd like to learn how to do that.

I remember having cabinets built for a house many years ago, and when the guy came to install the cabinet (this was the owner and the man who made them), he kicked the cabinets to get them into place. I nearly had a heart attack.

Oh, and I don't remember if he scribed them, or how well they fit. I guess I wasn't as into it as I am now.

marti8a, is there enough room to put baby crown around the top? That would make it look nicer that some other mouldings since you are not doing anything with the soffits.

Scribing is not that hard, it just takes a good scribe, a good eye, and patience.

PLEASE correct my terminology if I have gotten this wrong, but we have a 100 year old not square house and the cabinet maker had a lot of tweaking to do. Our ceiling is/was not uniform to say the least so we used a 4" crown that was scribed to the ceiling. Obvious if you are searching it out, but overall great. You can see in the photo how the ceiling dips down toward the right of the photo.

Wow, cluelessincolorado, your cabinet maker was great. powertoolpatriot, I'll look for some mini crown. I was thinking of something plain that wouldn't show the difference in size as much if it had to be narrower in some places. I've never scribed anything before, but I'd never built a cabinet before and that wasn't so bad, so I'll give it a go.

GreenDesigns, I don't know what part of the country you're in, but around here scribing is the standard for cabinet and crown installation, unless you're using the cheapest big-box guys.

Mine are similar to cluelessincolorado's, where not only the ceiing but the walls are pretty radically out of square/plumb, and you could never tell at a casual glance:

Installers are paid (not that well paid either) by the job, so they have a built in incentive to get it done as fast as possible and move on to the next job. That means no scribing for the most part.

The technique used most often in the case of out of level ceilings is to use a solid stock in the middle of the molding stack that will allow the crown to "float" up and down it over the length of the ceiling and thus minimize the height difference. The crown remains the same--no scribing.

Here's Buehl's diagram showing how that's done.

Around here, scribing is only done with higher end cabinetry. And that means going up the dollar ladder by quite a bit. Quite a bit. Even most of the "custom" guys aren't really custom guys and don't even make their own doors and wouldn't know a contour gauge or protractor if I handed them one. All the majority know is how to mislabel themselves and sometimes put tab B in slot A. The true custom craftsmen are very few and far between and expensive. So you have people who don'd understand the finer details (most of America) "settling" without even knowing that they are.

It's the same with counter installers. It used to be that just about anyone who did laminate counters knew how to scribe them to the walls. These days, they just fill any gaps with blobs of caulk rather than shaving down the high bits. And the stone guys would rather cut into the drywall than own a million dollar water jet that could scribe the stone to the wall. There aren't any of the old stone guys around to teach them how to hand scribe, and it would be too time consuming for a production business for them to learn even if there were. Too many man hours to be paid for to do that in a cuthroat low ball competitive shop business world.

I'm sure you'll master this marti!

this is probably why someone started the not to ceiling/uneven cab heights!

I think you're right hollysprings. And mine certainly weren't upper quality to begin with. BTW, did your name come the real city or the Mitford books?

Thanks Steph. It won't be because I didn't try.