Adding upper upper cabinets

11 years ago

I have 40" Kitchen Craft maple cabinets, topped with matching crown molding and almost two feet of space above them. I desperately need more storage space and cannot afford an entire kitchen redo. I checked and KC still makes my cabinets - could I install shorter cabinets with glass doors above my existing ones (removing the molding, of course)? My doors are frameless, so would they be seamless between the two? Any clue how much something like this would cost per linear foot? I don't want to go to a design shop until I have my husband on my side, so any info that I can use to persuade him to do this would be helpful!!!! I realize I would have to change out all the hardware but it would be worth it.

Comments (4)

bill102
11 years ago
Not sure about the cost but a few ideas have popped into my head. Instead of stacking a short cabinet on top of your upper cabinets, just get glass doors from Kitchen Craft that match your doors and then site build the sides in place and hang the doors. Here is my thinking: the top of your existing cabinet can be the floor of the new upper cabinet. The crown detail would be moved up to the ceiling.
angie_diy
11 years ago
It certainly can be done by adding new KC cabs on top of your existing ones. I don't know how much it will cost.

I think that the seams will be small enough for you not to notice or care. However, there could be a small and varying gap, depending on how well your present cabs are leveled.
What kind of cabs are they? If they are face-framed, then one way to make it seamless may be to scribe one set of cabinets to the other. A good installer would have no problem with this, I believe. If they are frameless, it may be more difficult, but I am sure it can be done.
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I only have one of them in progress. I think. I'll look. I also took a 42" cabinet and put a rail in it, adding 12" cabinet doors to the top part. But you're not trying to put in new cabinets. I can tell you that you can look at almost any picture of stacked cabinets and you'll see the same thing as what I did. I stacked 'em. Done. It's also THE least expensive way go get stacked cabinets. Reuse centers are CRAMMED full of your door style right now, so you can get 12" tall cabinets of almost any width for as little as $5.00 a cabinet. Throw those babies up there, screw them in and you are done. I just looked. All I have is this picture of the one where I added the rail. But they all look the same when it's done and painted. (Please ignore the bad ceiling line. I was just learning how to use my saw. That was covered with crown trim.)
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I have stacked uppers and love the look of it. We have just about 9' ceilings. From the bottom of the cabinet to the ceiling is 52". The door (not including frame) on the lower is 28" and the upper door is 12" - the rest is taken up by the frame and molding. Here is a pic (taken before kitchen was fully done): To the far right of this picture is our stacked upper that comes down to the countertop, but doesn't go all the way to the ceiling like the others. This is where we store our dishes and silverware so we were going for a hutch type effect, and this works well given the proximity of this cabinet to the DW and the table. here is a pic of Woodmode cabinets with stacked uppers and with glass doors and lighting in the upper cabinets. I have to say that I did not like the light seeping out around the edges of those upper doors (the issue is not apparent from the photo I am posting). Perhaps this is better pulled off with full overlay cabinets vs. inset?? or maybe this just bothers me??
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try a 36 in high corner cab with just a small amt of molding at top. keep the bottoms at the same level and the cabs adjacent to the corner at 24 to 30 in high with more molding at tops. the staggered dimension will be across tops. Give yourself 21 or 24 in backsplash height for this spot. What part of the kitchen is it? Assuming it isn't the only storage area, tweaking the dimensions for "looks" won't interfere with the storage you would otherwise need. You can do something even with normal 8ft ceilings[assume the soffits are gone].
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Comments (15)
I vote for either a wider window, or keep the uppers with doors -- both look good, so you just have to decide whether you need the extra storage. One suggestion - if its not already ordered/built, consider making one of the lower cabinets a roll-out so you can put your printer on it (rather than in an upper cabinet). Put a plug in the back of that cabinet so it can always stay plugged in.
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emagineer
11 years ago
Depending upon the style you could order a very small trim between upper and lower cabinets. I really want to do what you are thinking. The suggestion of just adding doors would work for me.

Has anyone ordered sample doors and the price/size? Would drawer fronts work too?

I also have some extra pantry pullouts which can be laid on their side. Their the ones that would nornally be attached to a unit that allows you to open out beyond the pantry. Just haven't got there. This might work for you too. The right size width wise to fill in the upper opening, even smaller to add trim to top. Laid on their side gives a great amount of storage. These do have all sides finished and can be attached to wall. Door fronts need to be removed and replaced with hinges that I hope can open upwards.

I'm probably not much help as my norm is finding things that turn a light bulb on in the brain.
live_wire_oak
11 years ago
Small cabinets with glass are 3x to 4x the price of regular full sized wood door cabinets. It's why a kitchen with stacked cabinets is a big costly upgrade. Glass cabinets also demand tidy storage, so I suggest just putting in plain cabinets without the glass. Use a decorative molding between the two and crown at the top and it will look fine.

Of course, you need to thin out the stuff you currently own and look at using other locations for storing odd sized items. Often times a laundry room can have additional shelving added to help relieve the crunch.

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Adding upper upper cabinets

Comments (4)

bill102

angie_diy

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emagineer

live_wire_oak

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