I finally finished a cabinet face frame install that took me almost 7 hours

I had a small kitchen job last week where I was putting in a new face frame for a set of upper cabinets. Thought it would be a quick 3 hour deal like usual. But the homeowner had these old walls that were out of level by nearly a half inch across just 8 feet. I ended up having to shim every single piece and check each joint with a square three times. Took me from noon till almost 7 in the evening to get everything plumb and square. My back was killing me by the end. Has anyone else run into walls that were that far off and found a faster way to handle it?

2 comments

2 Comments

ross.angela1mo ago

Oh man, that sounds brutal! I had almost the exact same thing happen on a bathroom vanity install last year. The wall was off by like 5/8 of an inch over just 6 feet, and I spent the whole afternoon dicking around with shims and rechecking every joint. I mean, I don't know if there's a faster way with walls that bad, but I ended up just taking a level and marking the high spots on the wall first so I could at least plan where all the shims needed to go before I even started cutting. Still took forever though.

noah9171mo ago

Oh man, did you at least get a good beer out of it after? I feel your pain on the back thing. I had a similar nightmare a few months back on a pantry cabinet install where the wall was so far off I actually had to rip down the face frame pieces on my tablesaw just to get them to sit flush on the top. I wound up using a long level to draw a level line across the back of the cabinet box before I even started, then I just glued and pinned all the shims to the wall in a little stack where I knew they'd be needed. Saved me from crawling around trying to wedge them in after the fact. Still took forever but at least my knees didn't hate me as much the next day.