Decorative Accents: Kitchen Base Cabinets with Feet
Remember this photo and my dishwasher saga that I wrote about a few months ago? That I had to get an ADA compliant dishwasher to fit under my ADA kitchen cabinets – which means they are 1 inch shorter in height than normal. I posted this photo to show you. It was taken before I repainted and updated the hardware and floor.
My house is the builder’s spec home and the builder either was cheap and got a deal on these cabinets or he intentionally put them in since it was a spec home. We will never know. Maytag used to make a normal size dishwasher that fit. I know because we have already had two over the past 20 years, but they don’t make the size anymore. We had to go with a smaller dishwasher that is much shorter than the previous two. Being shorter left the underside exposed. Yuck ! I had to remedy the situation in an easy and affordable way.
I painted the black with white paint and it did look a bit better, but it still looked unfinished. I had planned to add wood brackets as feet in front of it. Then life got in the way and the brackets sat on my work table for months.
The baseboard under the dishwasher finally has them – finished kitchen base cabinets with feet. Now the area looks a bit more cohesive with the rest of the cabinets.
It is a quick project to do. It actually took longer to touch up the baseboard paint that got stain on it when the floor was being refinished.
The new feet hide the exposed and ugly areas and blend right in.
I wrote about how I added and made the wood shelf bracket feet to my kitchen cabinets when I first started blogging in this post Kitchen Cabinet Makeover
I simply cut a wood shelf bracket down to size and glued it into place. (this is an old photo I found from when I was doing the project.)
Photo: Stephanie Wiley Photography
I was inspired to do it after seeing feet on kitchen photos in magazines. I loved the look and knew I had to figure out a way to do it.
Photo credit: Divine Photography, LLC
Fast forward to 2014 – I could not find the exact shelf brackets I used when I first painted my cabinets many years ago, but figured it was OK since the new brackets would be placed further back than the rest of the bracket feet already in place.
I attached the new bracket feet in a slightly different way. I placed them along the baseboard edge and not the cabinet edge as I had done the others. I had to do it this way so that the dishwasher door could open and close freely.
How to Make Feet For Kitchen Base Cabinets Using Wood Shelf Brackets
supplies needed:
- 2 Wood shelf brackets – in the lumber aisle at the home improvement store
- Primer and Paint
- Liquid Nails glue
- Paint brush
- Sandpaper and sanding block
- Painter’s Tape
- Optional: caulk and a table or hand saw
1. Remove metal hooks from brackets.
2. Sand rough edges to smooth the wood.
3. Place brackets under cabinet and in this case, dishwasher to figure out how much you may need to cut off so the door opens and closes.
4. Mark the measurement and then cut off. The brackets are made of pine, making them easy to cut with a saw.
5. Brush on one coat of primer and then 2 coats of paint. Let each coat dry before applying the next.
6. When the paint is dry, attach the brackets to the cabinets using Liquid Nails. Hold in place for a minute – this glue has major holding power and will hold the bracket up while it dries.
After I had the wood shelf brackets solidly in place, I filled in the gaps with caulk and then sanded smooth.
I needed to paint the entire baseboard to cover the stain that got on it when the floor was refinished.
From this angle you can see that the top of the wood brackets are not attached. When you stand up – you can’t see this.
I am still working on getting the rest of the baseboards repainted around the kitchen, but am happy that the feet are complete.
