How to Install Stock Upper Cabinets

Hi friends!

Well, it’s been a hot minute since we actually completed this project in our laundry room. Like, over a year 🙃 We installed stock upper cabinets in our laundry room to give us ample storage. The previous owners had some smaller, shorter cabinets that just really didn’t give us much to work with. Now they go all the way to the ceiling and we are taking full advantage of the vertical space while also keeping things hidden.

We bought these stock cabinets from Home Depot to try to save on $$. Plus, I wanted to paint them a specific color so I didn’t want a finished cabinet just to sand the paint and repaint it — it felt like a waste. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I used the color Natural Cream by Benjamin Moore, but I had it made at Sherwin Williams with the Emerald Urethane Trim Enamel paint line. It self-levels and gives the perfect finish — even with rolling/brushing vs. spraying!

After we painted, it was time to install. My husband marked the studs along the wall. Then, with the two of us holding the cabinets where we wanted them and making them level, we marked where along the cabinet we would need to drill to be in the stud. You could technically install cabinets with one person by screwing a level 2×4 into the wall and resting the cabinets on top of it, but since we were doing this together we figured we would forgo the extra work of patching. While I supported the cabinet (with some assistance from my husband), he marked the cabinet where the pilot holes would need to be drilled into the studs. Then, he drilled the pilot holes into the studs and we made sure the cabinet was level. We then used three 3″ constructions screws in each stud to secure the cabinet to the wall.

Once we had the first cabinet secured, we aligned the second cabinet so that it was flush with the first one. We didn’t have to use any kind of shims to make them flush and level, so while I held up the cabinet, my husband clamped them together and drilled the pilot holes — we did a pilot hole above the door hinges on the bottom and a pilot hole below the door hinges on the top — and then used 2″ construction screws to secure them together. Once these were secured, we went ahead and drilled the 3″ construction screws into the stud. This second cabinet only had one stud to drill into, but with three constructions screws in one stud, plus being secured to the other cabinet that was secured in two studs, we felt confident that adding three anchors/constructions screws on the other side of the cabinet would be enough to support any weight that we would need. They have been hanging over a year now with plenty of items inside them and we’ve had no issues or concerns.

Finally, we screwed the cabinet doors back on and leveled them out, and later installed cabinet hardware.

We haven’t added any crown moulding or spacer on the window wall to make it feel more finished, but we may decide to do that down the line. It’s something that would be purely for aesthetics and not functional so it’s not a priority for us. We still need to build a surround for the laundry to have some extra workable space. We plan to use plywood for the side with an extra 1×2 to make it look finished from the front. We plan to use plywood to make the countertop. Once we complete this, I will definitely write another blog post explaining what we did!

For now, here is a reel that breaks the whole process down that I just explained in writing.

Speak soon, friends!