moving old wall cabinets up a foot.. am I crazy?

[kyletp8668]

Hi everyone...first of all, this site is awesome. Thanks for the help in advance.

I live in a house built in 1929. A big problem we have found with the kitchen is the wall cabinets are hung about a foot too low on the wall (at least by modern standards). As a result, we can't even put a microwave or other small appliances on the counter because the cabinets overhead are too low.

The cabinets are very plain (no glass or anything). I am thinking about trying move them up the wall a foot. They would be in the same layout and everything, just higher. Do I stand a chance of getting them off of the wall without destroying them?

[Ron6519]

Older cabinet installations used 3" finish nails to install cabinets. Your success would depend upon how long the cabinet run was and how the cabinets were connected together.
A small run could be taken off the wall, raised into position and reinstalled at whatever height you want. You could even do it with a long run, with enough helping hands.
Ron

[Allison1888]

Yes, if they are in decent shape. Just go slow, see where the screws are and perhaps start with a cabinet that is more out of the way in case it doesn't work out well, it's not your first line of sight when you walk in. You may need wall repair, but that's not too hard.

[Michael Thomas]

Modern modular cabinets are typically secured to the wall and to each other with a handful of screws, and with care you can usually get them off the wall , as individual units, without much damage.

1929, though... in my area (Chicago) there's a good chance that they would be site built, if so it might be difficult to remove them except as a single assembly, and if they went around the corner likely very difficult to remove them without damage.

[kyletp8668]

There are two runs that are pretty short (only 3 and 4 doors wide) but they both go around corners

Thanks for the great responses. I think that I am going to give it a very careful try. My initial attempt is to move them up (corner and all) in one piece. If it looks like I am going to have to take them apart at the corner to get them off the wall, I may reconsider.

[twelvepole]

Wall cabinets are typically installed 18" above counter. It is not clear what you mean that your cabinets are installed 'a foot too low by modern standards.' That would put the wall cabinets at about 6" above the counter!

By modern standards, when installing individual cabinets that involve a corner, the corner cabinet is installed first. As indicated, your cabinets could, however, be one large integral box with stiles and doors attached, where the cabinets look like singular cabinets but are not. The corner could be a 'blind corner' where two long boxes abutt without cabinets making the actual turn.

If removing the wall cabinets, whether singular cabinets or an integral box, you will need to mark the height at which cabinets will be installed and use a level to chalk a line so that cabinets (integral boxes) are installed level. You will need cabinet screws so that you can screw into studs.

Keep in mind cabinet height and ceiling height. Standard wall cabinets are typically 30" tall, with shorter ones for over the range and refrigerator. Today, some manufacturers offer taller wall cabinets at 36", 42", and 48".

Please measure current space from top of counter to bottom of wall cabinets and post again. If installing an over the range microwave, a shorter cabinet may be required to accommodate the microwave. Going with a shorter cabinet would not require raising all the cabinets in the kitchen.

[Wirepuller38]

Remove the doors and any unsecured shelves to lighten the weight of the cabinets. Build temporary supports under each unit if too large for one person to handle. As stated before, work slowly. Finding all the fasteners will be your biggest challenge. Good luck with your project.

[art0y0]

We have the same problem in our 1930s kitchen (and twelvepole, yes, as crazy as it sounds, you have the numbers right---on old houses it wasn't uncommon for the space between counter and upper cabs to be six inches or even less---the counters were used for storage, rather than for workspace as they are today; most kitchens had a freestanding work table). Our cabinets are about eight inches above the counter, but it's still pretty useless space. We just put books there.

Here's what we found when we looked into how to solve the problem: in our case (as is common in most houses of that era) the cabinets are built in place, so they aren't boxes at all---they have sides nailed to the wall with frames and rails attached for doors and drawers. Consequently, they really can't be moved with any ease unless you want to take them apart and put them back together (and even then it's likely cheaper to start anew and build a new frame for your doors). One thing we are still considering, though, is cutting off the bottom of the cabinets and building a new bottom a foot or so up. It means losing a little cabinet space, but wouldn't entail taking anything off the wall. We have partial inset doors, so we'd have to replace those, but if you have full inset or overlay doors, you might get away with just cutting the door down to size.

You might check and see what you can see behind the cabinets---if not the uppers, try checking the lowers or behind any drawers, since they're probably all built the same way. We have open wall behind our drawer banks and were able to actually see how the frames were connected to the house, which was hugely helpful.

Good luck!