IKEA instructions and an alternative method.

Thanks bbtrix. when it comes to mitering corners, Ikea leaves a lot to be desired. I just installed some of their toekick and there was no ability to actually join the pieces together, they merely rest against each other and there could only be 90° corners with plastic end caps. Good thing no one gets down on the floor and really looks.

The idea of using a handsaw and miter box for most people is laughable.

To me the important take away in the alternate instructions that you posted was that the person assembled (so they could really hold the corners/miters together and make it look right visually) and then installed the molding as one piece rather than putting the molding up piece by piece.

I am finishing an IKEA Bodbyn kitchen and have reached the stage where the top and bottom Forbattra deco strips are going in. I have spent lots of time looking up how to cut and install them. I have spent a a few hours easily at the local IKEA picking their brains, but it turns out there's many ways too do it. At IKEA they are fortunate to have 20 foot ceilings so no problem for a tech to screw down any strips from up above on a tall ladder - they have no ceiling like we do really in real life. The best way is to try and clamp down the strip and screw up from under your cabinet top. I am going to cut and connect the pieces on the floor and then raise to the cabinet top. We have only a couple inches left above the strip so no way to screw from above. I'll be using pocket screws and a Kreg jig to join the angles tight first then lifting up to the cab. I also don't want to use adhesive - fairly permanent; you may want to get at your lighting wiring someday. I have a top corner unit - the angles are at 67.5 (or really 22.5 on a radial arm saw) it is one eighth of an octogon. You have to cut many test pieces of scrap wood to get your head around the proper saw settings or you will waste a lot of deco strip - especially because you are looking up at the top strip and need to adjust your mind. I am attacking it today. The lower strip has to wait until I do the backsplash and should be easier to attach from underneath with screws.

I'm posting a photo from early in the install - you can how little space is above the cabs.

We are almost done with a Bjorket kitchen. Bjorket only has flat trim pieces. For the side that goes (almost) to the ceiling, contractor scribed a trim piece along the top and, I think, glued it to some blocking screwed in from the bottom of the cabinets (see pic). For Charlie, it's smart that you waiting until doors were on to do the trim around the corner cabinet. My contractor's guys did it before doors and did not get the angle right (see pic). They were not very well versed in IKEA, or even some basic non-IKEA measuring for that matter.

Charlie O'Brien how did you determine your rail height for your uppers? Ikea is showing measuring from the floor up, but I want my deco strip as tight against the ceiling as possible.

Mike, we have a small kitchen and wanted it tight to the top as well. We ended up using almost the suggested IKEA measurement but maybe stole a couple inches upwards.

But, think for a second. Do you have light controller bars above the cabinets? How are you going to clamp the strip while you screw the strips in? Is your ceiling perfectly level from wall to wall? We used the IKEA measurement for the lowers as that is standard cabinet and countertop height. For the uppers we wanted the most space between the bottom of the cabinets and the countertop. You can safely hang a SEKTION box with about two inches to spare. IKEA shows in the FORBATTRA deco strip install diagrams clamping or screwing from the top - IMPOSSIBLE in your scenario. You'll have to glue with some construction adhesive (small drops along the way) or screws from underneath - we screwed from below. My solution to hold the strips in place was several thin wood shims you use for window and door installs. You can buy a bundle at Home Depot or Lowes.

Turns out our ceiling is NOT level and we could not go to the very top - I left a small space and we'll just live with it. I also have some light controllers on top of the cabinets I might want to get at so I screwed only at a few locations. IKEA includes some foamy tape - useless for upper cabinet stuff, but consider using it below the cabinets if you have a light source. Light will peak through the crack unless you plug it with the foamy tape - it is NOT adhesive. Duh!! Come on IKEA! You have to tape it with Scotch tape so it stays while you install.

One thing that came to mind AFTER I was done was to take some of the enclosed IKEA corner brackets they give you and screw a couple in along the TOP of your cabinets BEFORE hanging them. This will give you an edge to push against when sliding your strips up and into place. You wont be able to screw them into the bracket but a dab of construction adhesive could work against it. Is that clear? The deco strips at the IKEA store or showroom are done with unlimited ceilings and a tall ladder.

If you have a corner UPPER unit it will steal some inches from your total measurement - we lost have an inch width and our end cabinet hangs half an inch out into the door frame after I out a cover panel on it. Rooms aren't square.

If you have a corner unit the angle is 67.5 degrees (that's 22.5 on your radial arm saw.) Remember if you are working upside down for the top ones or right side up for the lower strips when measuring and cutting - it blows your mind. I even had to steal a degree on the cuts to make them follow the line of my cabinets.

I hope I covered your question. This has been consuming the last two months of my life so I've thought a LOT about it.

Please ASK.

Mike, I installed mine close to my soffit. I painstakingly calculated based on the rail install directions and the alterations I was making. The diagram gives you the basic suggestion for 30" uppers and 22 5/16 between the base cab rail and the bottom of the upper. If you create a similar diagram translating your changes depending on ceiling height, upper cab height, backsplash height, and whether you are also using a deco strip for light rail, you can calculate your rail hang height. If your ceiling isn't level, you may be able to still go to the ceiling if the the amount out of square isn't too great. I also used a soffit, crown, and caulk to disguise my unlevel ceiling. I did not use mechanical fasteners to attach the deco strips, but used construction adhesive and shims.

bbtrix - nice looking job!! very sharp work!

bbtrix, looking great! I'm currently in process of designing a kitchen using either the bodbyn or grimslov line. I was trying to figure out where to put the microwave and like your layout. What cabinet is your mw in?

Annette, it's a 24x30 wall cab which I eliminated the doors. I was leaning toward a door that opens upward, but my daughter will be living there and wants open shelf(s) above. If you check countertop microwave dimensions first you can come up with a cab size that will work in case the MW has to be replaced. The height of the MW will play into whether you want a door above it. In the 24 wide cab the choices are 5, 10, and 15 that would have worked for me.

Annette, depending on your needs, there are microwaves that are small enough to fit inside a cabinet, with doors closing over them. I just put a Danco DMW7700WDB inside a 36inch wide upper with Grimslov doors. It would fit in a cabinet as narrow as 21 or 24 inches. It's a very small microwave though.

Cool. I'm heading to IKEA this week to so some actual hands on research.

I have a small magic chef mw but am totally open to finding another if I can fit it somewhere and make it unobtrusive.

Annette, we are getting rid of a large microwave that sat on our countertop and ate space. In the new IKEA kitchen we are also adding a pantry in an old storage walk in space. We're adding an 80inch by 24inch tall cabinet with drawers below (Maiximera) and a large door above with 3 shelves inside. I plan on putting a smaller microwave on one shelf. I'll be running wiring in through the back of the cabinet. We now use it for only popcorn, thawing a few frozen things and boiling water :) so it's being downgraded and hidden away. We'll be starting on it this weekend as we also will access the back of the bathroom from this pantry during construction of an recessed IKEA medicine cabinet. Bathroom stuff is 15% off right now and picked up a vanity, sink and faucet as well. IKEA truck comes this Saturday. It's never ending.

Let's revive this discussion with my current dilemma!

As you can see in all the pics my ceiling is pretty uneven. I wanted the down style that they have on both top and bottom but had to settle for only having it on the bottom because there's no space at the top. I used all of ikeas measurements to a T.

I went back and bought a bunch of their other off white molding but I have no idea what to do to complete this job.

Your help and experiences would be greatly helpful!!

I think I have a lot of space though uo there. I'll put the piece of stuff up later and take More pics

Glad to see this old thread!
I'm not using Ikea, but have cabinets too close to the ceiling for crown. 39" on a ranch's 96" ceilings. I like the look of all these pics and now have some great ideas!
Thanks. :)

Good day to all,

I recently installed my IKEA kitchen cabinets and I'm having the same dilemma as I see in this tread I'm not the only person to have difficulty with the Deco strip for the upper corner cabinet. What is unique to my particular situation is most people put a cabinet adjacent to the corner cabinet on both sides however my kitchen window interfered with that plan (see pic). IKEA instructions specify cut angle at 67.5° (or on my miter chopsaw's 22°); which took me two extra strips to figure that out on my own, lol The instructions IKEA provides do not include the cover panel without as I mentioned before that extra side cabinet. I am going out of my mind trying to get this aesthetically correct can someone please help me ...? You can see in the first pic how I have the front of the corner cabinet Deco strip just taped because I'm not happy with the way it lays over the door like that, it just doesn't look right so I won't mount it until I get it correct. The rest of the kitchen looks OK.

Desiree, I don't think I've ever seen that IKEA corner cabinet used that way - it is interesting. 22.5 degrees is an octagon and in a perfect world 8 cuts would all join together to make connected item. The corner cabs are supposed to be 22.5 and that is the suggested angle to cut both sides if it was continuing along either left or right walls from corner. I played with a lot of scrap wood first - and still did flip a few panels upside down by mistake. It's not really 22.5! They needed to be 23 or 24 and hand trimmed in the mitre saw at the rear of the piece to get them to really fit with the OVERHANG I wanted. Why I don't know? Your LEFT join looks good, but the overhang is not pleasing to the eye. I can see you would need to do that on your RIGHT join to maintain some overhang - trimming by eye. Use scrap pieces of wood to practise!!! Then write on them where it goes and what side is up or down! It'll keep you from pulling out hair. If you get the angles right - transfer the angles to your good trim so you don't waste it. Hope that helps. I also found pre-joining a couple pieces on the floor - or at least doing a DRY join on the floor helped too. Use a piece of square cardboard as your cabinet template on the floor - see how they fit. Good luck.

Ken Adessa, those metal hanging clamps the come with the strips are useless for up above. Your best bet, if you haven't attacked it yet is to use construction adhesive (a drop or two along the way and in the joins.) You can also screw from BELOW (through the cabinet box). use a shim or two to hold the strip in place while you do that. There's no room for you hands!!!

We are dealing with a similar issue with our BODBYN wall cabinets. We are using cover panels (in the gray color) for the sides of the wall cabinets and the gray decostrip on the top of the cabinet and underneath. I have a couple of questions: 1. When sizing the cover panels for the sides of the wall cabinets, should they go all the way to the wall (since the cabinets stick out about a 1/4 inch from the wall to cover this gap) or should they just cover the side of the cabinet plus a little extra in the front to account for the doors? 2. Is it possible to attach the decostrip to the top of the wall cabinets before installing the cabinets? We have the 40in. cabinets and want them to go all of the way to the ceiling if possible. There are two sets of wall cabinets going in with a 30in. open space in between them for a range hood to eventually go above our stove. There is enough room to slide them on the suspension rails from the side.

Hi all, I'm installing SEKTION cabinets in our (low ceiling) condo, but in a previous install I closed the 3-4" uneven gap up top by making a template from corrugated cardboard, first by taping about a 4" strip around the tops of the vertical faces of the boxes, then gluing overlapping 8-10" long strips to it that followed the contour of the ceiling, using a spray adhesive. The taped strips then became templates once they were removed and I was able to make the crown pieces out of toe-kicks. It looked good and kept the dust out. Hope this helps someone!

I like theemikeb's method of mouting the top rail at the correct height after taking into account the thickness of the molding.

My only question is what to do when you have a floor to ceiling pantry cabinet. I believe ours is 90" tall, so if I mount my top rail for the rest of the upper cabinets at a different height than what I need for this cabinet, I will have uneven uppers at least in theory......? Am I Missing something?

@theemikeb how tall are the legs and trim in you 90” cabinets? I’m purchasing our cabinets soon and want to make sure I’ve measured this out right. I have 96” (or 8ft ceilings) and am planning to have our contractor install it the same way you have yours.

@TerryFunk, I wouldn’t necessarily call it difficult but you do need to have a skill level. There’s info out there on different techniques. We did our own thing and used an upper refrigerator cabinet as the base.

Maybe pics will help.

Let me know if I should start a new thread. We're installing this weekend. A dishwasher will be at one end of our base cabinet run. We will have 3 cm quartzite counters. Do we need only a cover panel to the right of the dishwasher? Or, do we need something more substantial to the right of the dishwasher to hold the countertop above the dishwasher? Thanks for this post - very helpful!

blondelle - wrong thread.

Don't use screws to attach the upper crown trim, you will always see them. Instead, use a dab of PL Premium on any connections and where the trim touches the top of the cabinet, use tape to hold in place overnight. If you absolutely must, use a brad nailer to secure, but you will see the nails.

We just had our ikea kitchen installed - has anyone had any issues with the unfinished/cut side of a deco strip showing? The cabinets are lower than our microwave. Our installer slapped some paint (?) on the ends to camouflage, but I am not that happy with the result. Wondering if a nip & tuck cut would have worked out better. My worry is that it will be difficult to clean over time, since these unfinished ends are both in our cooking area.

An angled (mitred) corner and return would have been better in this situation. The cut end would be facing to the back (unseen). I would have butt the cut end up to the small trim that is 1/4 of the way to the back, or if possible, removing that and going all the way to the back wall with the return.

Look at 302.664.37 Should be a cover panel in white. I'd rip the top and bottom so you have two finished edges on a table saw to the same height that would make it flush from the bottom of the microwave to the bottom of the cabinet including the molding looks like maybe 4-5"? Use the cut edge for the top that faces the microwave so you don't see it. That should finish it off nicely for a mere $25.00. Good luck!

Glad I found this thread and it’s still active! I’m just about 90% finished in our SEKTION cabinet install but we have vaulted ceilings... I’m stumped on if I should use crown moulding because I won’t be able to get the same sheen as the cabinet fronts (AXSTAD matte white). Is there a way I can use one of their trim pieces to give the cabinets a finish look on top?

You can either use the deco strip ones provides as the crown, or you can get a custom paint match for whatever crown moulding you want. I don’t know it off the top of my head but people on this board have a specific suggestion for matching the Axstad white in a super matte paint. Since the moulding is 8 feet up in the air, any tiny difference in colour or sheen is going to be very hard to notice. I plan on getting a custom colour match in super matte paint for my blue axstad crown moulding.

jawbreak23- glad i found this post. i am updating my Ikea Akurum cabinets—the old system before Sektion—& want to add the deco strips on top. Everyone's pics look like the strip is rounded & extends beyond the doors but yours look square & flush—which is what I want. Did u install them as per directions or customize the installation? Thx!

We are hanging our Sektion cabinets. Originally we wanted them flesh with the ceiling so we didn't by the deco strips. Of course our ceiling isn't level and we want to close the gap. However, our railing is hung with just enough room to lift the cabinet into place. What would you do? We are debating about taking it all down and moving the railing down an inch? Is there another fix?

@Katie - You're definitely going to want to move them down. If you have a 8ft ceiling and the cabinet is flush to the ceiling, bottom of the cabinet is going to be awkward to reach/get in and out of.

Thanks! @Joe Franks do you recommend getting the deco strips from Ikea or just a piece of trim from a hardware store? We were thinking about drilling a piece of wood to the top of the cabinet and then nail gunning the trim to that board. Does that seem like the best process?

New construction: What is the optimal ceiling height when including molding over 40" cabinets? I thought 8 ft was best but, after reading this thread, I am wondering if should raise the ceiling a few inches.

If you hang them too close to the ceiling and your ceiling isn't perfectly flush, you also run the risk of having your doors scrape the ceiling (or not be able to open fully). Move them down. And yes, buy the deco strips from IKEA so the finishes match.

ETA: We used the method above of assembling "on the ground", then sliding into place and finish nailing from below.

@tc9876 we have 8' ceilings and planning the Ikea upper cabinets would be MUCH easier if we had a few extra inches. We prefer the full 40" uppers, but we also want crown moulding and a light rail. Additonally, we also want the space above the counter to be slightly higher than the standard 18" (certainly no smaller than that standard). We're probably going to have to settle for 30" uppers that won't go all the way tot he ceiling if we want all of these things.

We added the deco strip to the bottom of the cabinet to hide our light, but now there’s a gap that the light shines through. What did we do wrong?

Do you have a picture? Here is what we did

Hopefully some of you above have finished your projects by now and can help with suggestions!

We are putting the deco strip on top of the cabinets. At the left side the cabinet ends 4"from the wall so we are putting a filler piece to close the gap between cabinet and wall. So do you put the deco strip all the way to the wall flat?

@Matthew Ireland - Can you post a picture? I think I know what you're asking, but just to confirm....