Installing Upper Cabinets with new hardware in our Garage

There is one sure way to install upper cabinets that not only makes it a breeze but even makes it a doable one person job. I finished getting these cabinets (and the work bench) painted out a bit ago and was super excited to get them off the floor of our garage. It was mid October at this point and Lodi and I were more than ready to park our cars in the garage again to not have to defrost them every morning. (The literal reason we have a garage lol.) We were quite glad it hadn’t snowed yet as that isn’t exactly unheard of for a northern Minnesota October…

Thank goodness (for all of the reasons) that we ended up having a beautiful October!

I gathered my tools: Our impact driver, some 3″ torque screws, our 4 foot level and a straight board.

I measured up 18″ from the top center of the bench, made my mark and then screwed the board on the mark.

(Generally upper cabinets are hung anywhere from 18-24 inches from the surface of what they’re above – but it really depends on the situation. This bench is pretty tall and deep so I kept them a little low because, well, I’m short.)

I did not put in the first screw very deep so then that I could seesaw and level out the board before fully securing it.

I did this one upper cabinet at a time. I set them up on the work bench exactly where I wanted the cabinet to go on the wall above it so I could start one screw in the top exactly where I knew the stud would be.

Then I just had to lift the cabinet up on top of the board and sink the screw into the stud(s) behind the cabinet.

Easy!

I did that with all four cabinets and added several extra screws to really secure them and also screwed them together as well.

I then just removed the board.

That sure beats installing (and trying to level) each cabinet individually!

So next up is the part I was most excited about.

Two of these cabinets had some old brassy hardware on them and the other two had never had hardware so I thought we could really fancy them up a little.

I ordered these on Amazon.

I love how simple and modern they are and figured the chrome would be perfect here.

I have another trick up my sleeve to making hardware easy to install too. I cut out a piece of cardboard and then screwed a pull into it to make a template.

Then I positioned the template where I wanted the pulls to go and marked the holes. Then I just drilled them out and installed each pull.

So easy!

These old upper cabinets are shockingly better I think – what an upgrade!