Kitchen Upper Cabinets that extend to ceiling

[paulWoodworker]

Here's what I did.. I used these aluminum "French cleats". (Link at end) . They are very thin and strong.
You can buy long pieces, level them all along your wall, then put a piece on the back of your cabinet (recess the back in a bit to make room)
In order to do this, you need a small gap between the top of the cabinet and ceiling, so you can lift the cabinet up over the cleat and then drop it in place.
I filled that gap with crown. I needed to keep a small sofit over the cabinets for utilities.. but I have 9 foot ceiling too. The builder had 32" uppers with a huge soffit.
I was able to put in 48" uppers with a smaller soffit. Lots more storage..

Another thing to keep in mind, since your uppers are so tall.. Consider at least part of the kitchen, making the distance between the countertops and the bottom of the uppers at least 18".. No doubt at some point in your life, you will get a tall coffee maker or food processor or whatever.. I made one "lower" taller than the rest and then increased the distance from counter to upper to about 19".. The rest of the kitchen, the distance between counter and upper is less. I forget the exact amount, but you can look up the recommended min and max..

link to aluminum french cleats:
https://monarchmetal.com/products/monarch-z-clips/

[greatscott]

(04-05-2021, 07:20 PM)lift mechanic Wrote: At 54" tall cabinets I would use 12mm x 60" x 60" baltic birch plywood for the boxes, not much waste. You can get in pre-finished or just sanded. Face frames are easy to build and you can get the look you want. I prefer stained glass inserts and inset doors using Blum hinges. Blum hinges have plenty of adjustment. Hange the cabinets as close to the ceiling and put a crown molding to finish off the top, ceilings are not always as flat as they look.

Definitely going with prefinished plywood.  I was actually going to use something like prefinished maple plywood.  I originally thought of using prefinished baltic birch for the boxes but someone/something I read steered me away from using that (don't recall).  Might have to do a little more research in that regard.

[greatscott]

(04-06-2021, 12:00 AM)paulWoodworker Wrote: Here's what I did.. I used these aluminum "French cleats".  (Link at end) . They are very thin and strong.
You can buy long pieces, level them all along your wall, then put a piece on the back of your cabinet (recess the back in a bit to make room)
In order to do this, you need a small gap between the top of the cabinet and ceiling, so you can lift the cabinet up over the cleat and then drop it in place.
I filled that gap with crown.  I needed to keep a small sofit over the cabinets for utilities.. but I have 9 foot ceiling too. The builder had 32" uppers with a huge soffit.
I was able to put in 48" uppers with a smaller soffit. Lots more storage..

Another thing to keep in mind, since your uppers are so tall.. Consider at least part of the kitchen, making the distance between the countertops and the bottom of the uppers at least 18"..  No doubt at some point in your life, you will get a tall coffee maker or food processor or whatever..  I made one "lower" taller than the rest and then increased the distance from counter to upper to about 19".. The rest of the kitchen, the distance between counter and upper is less. I forget the exact amount, but you can look up the recommended min and max..

link to aluminum french cleats:
https://monarchmetal.com/products/monarch-z-clips/

Thanks for the link/info on the aluminum french cleats.  Might have to go with that as it seems it would be easier to hang vs screwing cabinets into the wall as I've always done in the past.  As for the space between lower and upper cabinets, I'll have to keep that in mind as I currently have a coffee maker that presses right up against the max height of that space currently there and having another inch or two of space would be ideal.

[MT Woodworker]

+1 on French cleats
Makes it much easier to get exactly level when hanging the upper cabinets.

[DogwoodTales]

I would go for the taller, one-box cabinet. That way with adjustable shelving the upper area can be whatever height best suites whatever you need to store in that cabinet.
Two boxes will limit the adjustability.

Someone above mentioned the concern with keeping the taller door flat. If you're concerned about that you could still make two doors for each cabinet.

[museumguy]

I install kitchens as my job. The few times we have done cabinets as you suggest, it has always been 2 cabinets stacked on top of each other. In the end, they look horrible. Too many seam lines for my taste. However, the biggest issue is having all of them line up correctly because they are all off just a small amount in size. Now, keep in mind these are factory built boxes. I'm certain that you will take better care to make sure they are the same size.

[John Mihich]

I have done both.  The last ones were Skaker style with one big cabinet to the ceiling.  My old house I did it the other way.  I like them both.  One thing to consider the doors.  One big cabinet one door the other you have 2.  So you have to work harder at aligning the extra doors.  Not a big deal just another thing to deal with. 

I will be doing our kitchen soon and it will be one door per cabinet but then I'm dealing with only 8' ceilings.

[Roly]

(04-08-2021, 09:48 AM)DogwoodTales Wrote: I would go for the taller, one-box cabinet. That way with adjustable shelving the upper area can be whatever height best suites whatever you need to store in that cabinet.
Two boxes will limit the adjustability.

Someone above mentioned the concern with keeping the taller door flat. If you're concerned about that you could still make two doors for each cabinet.

I agree with the adjustable shelves .  As far as keeping them flat, use more hinges.   I use 3 hinges on 42" doors,  and I would maybe use 4 on your doors.   Roly

[RonB1957]

(04-05-2021, 03:04 PM)Danny in Houston Wrote: Here's my kitchen cabinets with smaller cabinets above main ones, single box.  Upper smaller cabinets used to store seasonal items or rarely used stuff.

Love the door profile. Would like to see the inside of the doors as well to get an idea of how they are constructed.