Fitting multiple cabinets between two walls

[Steven Knowlton]

I'm a complete newbie to this forum. Glad to be here.

So here's something that I'm curious about.

I would like to make custom cabinets for an alcove in my house. This alcove is about 65 inches wide, and is a kind of "butler's kitchen." The builder installed, some 24 years ago, two base cabinets and two standard wall cabinets, all frameless. They are both made of cheap half-inch melamine, although the doors are OK, they appear to be pure hardwood material, even the raised panel. Both top and bottom cabinets appear to be standard 32-inch wide cabinets with a 1/2 inch of "filler" on either side to make up the 65 inches.

If I want to install face frame cabinets with no "filler" pieces, do I plan for the outer face frames to be about an 1/8 inch more than I need? And then scribe/plane them down? Do professionals plan for less than 1/8"? Also I don't know for sure that the space is square. Perhaps I should study the walls with a little more precision?

Also, I'm having someone else finish the face frames before I mount them on the cabinets. That means that if I plane off some of the side of the face frame to fit the wall, I could screw up the finish on the adjoining (front) face of the material.

Am I on the right track here? Is there a better way to do this? I don't want to be the only person west of the Atlantic doing this.

[Wayne Lomman]

Welcome!

If you must use face frames, scribe and fit to the opening before you get it polished. That way the final install is hassle free - to a point. Frame less with fillets is much simpler and straightforward. Your old cabinets are not a good example of frame less cabinetry. Even for that long ago they were cheap. Even if you do all the frame fitting after polishing, planing the edges to fit does not affect your face finish. Cheers

[Ron Citerone]

I agree with Wayne's approach. Additionally, I would start with a perfectly square piece of plywood the height of the cabinets and place it in the corners to see how plumb, straight and square the corners are. A little adjustment to the walls first might make this whole process way simpler.

Good luck

[Jim Becker]

An important thing to understand about installing a built-in with face frames between two walls like that, particularly if they are drywall, is that you will and must damage the wall slightly to get things in place simply because the wall will have a slight taper from the mud process to the corner bead. The repair is simple, of course. I mention this so that you don't get frustrated by that part. And yes, scribe the outside pieces of the face frame prior to assembly and then carefully figure out the required width at the place the face frame will sit in the opening to complete the frame. I prefer to actually install the face frame after the cabinets are set in place for this, but that's merely a personal preference.

[liam c murphy]

The extra material allowance for your stile can be roughly determined by finding the largest deviation from plumb and/or straight etc. The deviation could be any amount. I wouldn’t go with 1/8’without checking both walls.

[Martin Wasner]

Loose stiles.

Build the face frame, just don't glue the stiles to the rest of the frame. When you mount the frame to the box, don't glue the stiles to it either. Add whatever you feel is necessary for scribe. We do ½" on each side 99% of the time.

At install, remove the loose stiles, hang the box. Scribe the loose stiles to fit. Put them on.

Pretty much standard operating procedure in cabinet shops whether pre-finished or finished on site.

[Bill Adamsen]

What Martin said. Loose stiles. No filler is necessary.

Recently did a site finished job where one of the openings was about 8' wide, the other 4'. Sides were scribed, top and bottom received trim, so a loose fit. One inch thick doors and trim. The cabinets were very heavy (9' high, almost 2' deep) requiring being set in advance without the scribe stiles (5/16" extra). All face frame elements including the loose stiles were dominoed (is that a verb?) to the carcass. I would have preferred that stiles be dominoed to rails – and I considered that – then decided it simply wasn't rational. The middle rails would have been reasonably easy to clamp on site but I was sure the top and possibly bottom would be challenging. I used extended cure aliphatic glue. It all worked out ok, but there was plenty of opportunity for disaster. Had it been a pre-finished natural I would have had to used much greater care to match the joints. Probably the biggest challenge was the clamping to get the stiles tight. I just screwed 2x material to the walls and wedged.

Much nicer to have an open end.