Our kitchen remodel continues at a steady pace – the excitement builds day by day! We just installed our kitchen island cabinets. Let me take you on a step by step walk through installing kitchen island cabinets.
Installing Kitchen Island Step 1: Open all the boxes!
Thankfully, all the boxes and the diagrams provided by CliqStudios were right on. Again, nothing was damaged, scratched, or missing. It has been a flawless experience working with CliqStudios. So, the first step to installing kitchen island cabinets is to open all the boxes and figure out what goes where. Taking a first peek at all the cabinets is my favorite! I’m loving all the bells and whistles that I didn’t even realize would be so awesome when we ordered them!
Installing Kitchen Island Step 2: Line ’em up and connect them
My father-in-law, who is also a Medina general contractor finds it easiest to lay the cabinets on their backs to line them up. He’s been doing this for 25 years, so he knows exactly what he is doing! He connected all the cabinets for the first side of the kitchen island first.
Installing Kitchen Island Step 3: Put them up right and make sure they are level
Once the cabinets are connected, he and my husband picked them up and placed them up right. Then, they measured from the walls to place them exactly where they should be. As a general rule, you should try to leave yourself 36″ of walking space between a kitchen island and the wall or other cabinets, and that is what we did.
Did you notice that my beautiful Tarkett flooring is missing? Remember how I told you we poured 800 pounds of concrete to level our floor last year? Well, it didn’t take. At no fault of the Tarkett flooring, we could tell after walking on it these past 10 months that the floor underneath wasn’t quite level enough. ugh! So, we have to pour more concrete, about 3″ in some spots to make the kitchen and dining room floor level! Thus, the reason for all of the shims underneath all of the cabinets.
Yep, we have to pour concrete all the way up to line up with the bottom of the cabinets and the shims. It’s crazy.
The level was our best friend. They check and checked and rechecked throughout the whole process to be sure that all the cabinets on the wall and the island were level since our floors are sooo unlevel!
Installing Kitchen Island Step 4:Repeat Steps 1-3 and connect both sets
Our kitchen island is huge. It didn’t seem so large when we were designing it but it is gigantic! As you can see below, we had an entire backside of cabinets to double the island size. We repeated steps 1-3 for the second side of cabinetry and attached to two sets. Yippee! They matched perfectly!
I can’t get over how beautiful the inset doors are. I find myself staring at these beautiful cabinets all the time. Just look at the details. I love the variations in the maple wood, it adds so much character but not overly like a hickory wood does.
Painting the Kitchen
Last Summer, we painted the wall with the windows in the kitchen and dining room a sage green. We were not sure if we were going to keep the remaining walls on the 2 sides because of the rough plaster or replace it, so we didn’t paint it. We had 6 months to figure it out so we wouldn’t have to paint around our gorgeous cabinets but what did we do? We waited until our gorgeous cabinets were hung, then we primed and painted the walls. My father-in-law did a fantastic job with joint compound covering up the plaster so we saved ourselves a lot of time and money without adding new drywall. The walls look good as new.
My mother-in-law is the queen of edging, so she trimmed all the walls and around the cabinets so we didn’t get any paint on the cabinets while I used the roller and painted the bigger spaces. Plus, we noticed that one section of the “finished” wall had some issues that we missed the first time around so since we had the materials out, we fixed that wall and repainted it too.
There is still plenty to do! We have a couple upper cabinets to place above where the dishwasher will be, we have crown molding to put up, toe kick to install, and an entire bar to create at the end of the bar. Our kitchen remodel is moving forward very quickly! I can’t wait to enjoy my dream kitchen! Many, many thanks to my in-laws who are such gems, working tirelessly to help our project become a reality. How do you repay such a gift?!
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This was not a paid post. My own opinions were used based on my perceptions and experience. Thank you to CliqStudios with their ongoing relationship with AkronOhioMoms.com. For more information on CliqStudios, visit them at http://www.cliqstudios.com.
