Mounting cabinets in garage

[Peter Hanson]

A neighbor my wife knows is remodeling the kitchen. The plans were for the re-modeler to completely demo the kitchen, i.e. everything goes to the landfill/incinerator. I volunteered to "re purpose" the cabinets in my garage/workshop (somewhere around half a 2 car garage is my workshop).

So, now I'm the lucky owner of nearly 18' of cheap, but usable maple fronted base cabinets and 8' of uppers. Since the price was $0, I'm pretty happy (insert stealth gloat).

My problem is that my garage (and I'm sure many others), has a footing that rises above the floor by varying amount, but usually at least 2" and generally less than 3". Then a +/- 4" step to the 2 x 6 PT sill plates, then a step to the 2 x 4 construction walls. I'm not sure what is the best approach to installing these cabinets. My thoughts so far:
1. Notch the cabinets so they will fit against the wall. This will work as long as the notching stays below the bottom self of the cabinets. And this approach doesn't work for a cabinet in a corner very well.
2. Mount (set) the cabinets on the floor. This leaves a space greater than 6" between the wall and the back of the cabinets which might be nice for DC piping, but I'm not there yet. And if I go this route, I'll still somehow need to periodically attach the cabinets to the wall anyhow. And then I'll have to build some sort of bracing for the uppers out from the wall or they will be (mostly) impossible to reach into.
3. Set the cabinets up on the footing, but still not against the wall. I'm not sure there is any advantage here.
4. Set the cabinets on the sill plate and mounted to the wall. Disadvantage - seriously raises the cabinets (hence, counter-top) height and I believe will need adding additional bracing between the cabinet bottoms and the floor.

Are there other possibilities/solutions? I've seen pics of others' garage based workshops with cabinets. What have you seen or done?

Thanks,
psh

[Ed Hazel]

Not sure how tall you are but I have my shop cabinets about 42 inches high. I might raise them up, you could always put a drawer under them.

Your could cut them off just below the shelf and the raise them 6 - 8 inches with a drawer under them. I suppose you could make a base for them and not mount them to the wall that way you could move them easily later,

[Joe A Faulkner]

If your shop features a tablesaw, and you rip long lumber or sheet goods, you might want to consider whether or not you want any counter tops higher than your table saw, and if so where this is acceptable (maybe along one wall?).

Notching the back of the cabinets will be a pain. You will have to brace the bottom shelf, and apply a new back to the "notched section". Also, if your new cabinets feature any drawer stacks, now you have to shorten a drawer here or there. May be worth doing if keeping the counter tops at a standard height is your goal.

I think Ed's suggestion may be the best bet - build a base (or drawer) platform that can be shimmed flush with top of your sill plate. Make this 21 inches deep so that you have a toe kick relief on the front of the base cabinets. Cut 3 inches or so off the bottom of the base cabinets and set them on the new base and attach to the wall. Your new counter top height will be ~41.5 inches.

[Phil Thien]

If your floor is decent I'd just hold the cabinets out from the wall a few inches and leave room for storage of longer items between the cabinets and the wall. Adding a few shelves will allow you to store longer dowels, sections of DC pipe, etc.

Your counter top can still run all the way to the wall so you don't have to worry about stuff falling off the top into the back.

[Dick Thomas]

. . .
Notching the back of the cabinets will be a pain. You will have to brace the bottom shelf, and apply a new back to the "notched section". Also, if your new cabinets feature any drawer stacks, now you have to shorten a drawer here or there.
. . .

Whoa, Joe: A second opinion:
Peter: Carefully measure the floor-to-sill height in the area where you want to install the cabinets! The way you described the 'step', it MAY be shorter than the normal toe-kick height of most kitchen cabinets. That height is normally about 4+/- inches. That means the bottom drawer and/or bottom plate of a 'door' cabinet, will be higher than the step. Therefore all you have to do is notch both cabinet side panels to match the step, and they'll slide right back to the wall. The remaining depth of the side panels should be fine to support the cabinets, especially since you'll be attaching the cabinet back into the wall studs.
I've notched several cabinets just this way to allow clearance for plumbing & wiring runs where existing services didn't match remodel locations.

[Jay Radke]

I did a combo of what Phil and Joe suggest. I was able to get some base cabinets from work. These are metal and about 36 inches high. I wanted my bench a little higher as I do other work on it than wood working, its really just a work bench. So I built a platform to raise it which also helps to keep it from rusting. Second I didnt put it flush with the wall. This allowed me to put the top with backsplash all the way the wall. The space that is left is wher I store the glass table top from our deck furniture over the witner and other things that I can get out of the way.