Hanging Cabinets and Laying Tile

So the wife and I have bought a fixer upper a few months back and have been working on getting all the wall paper off the walls. If I ever met the person that invented that stuff I would kill them. Well about a week ago we walked into a great deal on cabinets. We where able to get the display set of hickory cabinets for 1500. We needed a few extra cabinets and she wanted a different counter top than the display so we ended up spending about 3000 on all the cabinets and counter tops for the kitchen.

So the question is how hard is it to hang cabinets? I like to do things myself by I would hate to screw up the cabinets. Is it worth the money to have someone install it?

Moving on from there since we are pulling out all the old cabinets we figured we should do the floors as well. Right now there is two layers of rolled vinyl flooring that needs removed before I think about laying the tile. We are going to go with 12x12 tiles. Any advice, tips or tricks for laying tile because I would like to get this right the first go round. There is no hurry to get it in thats why I would like to do most of the work myself.

Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated.

 

I'm in the same boat as you. I bought a fixer upper in June and completely gutted many of the rooms, including the kitchen. My dad and I hung all the cabinets ourself and neither of us had ever done it before. If you're handy with carpentry and have the tools for the job, it's not overly hard, just tedious work. Make sure you have blocking in the walls where you need it or mark all your studs. You need to make sure the cabinets are being held by something solid. The hardest part, at least in my opinion, was installing in an old house. Everything we installed was square, level and plumb, nothing in the old house was any of the above. We ended up having to scribe the end pieces to fit the snug, lots of shimming to make things level, it was a challenge but a rewarding experience. I can't see how you could hang cabinets without a helping hand and it takes a lot of patience.

As far as tile, I'm doing that next also. I haven't done it before but it's not terribly hard. My old floor was a 100 year build up of old Maple floors, linoleum, 3/4" plywood, then more linoleum. I stripped it down to the old Maple. I set the base cabinets on 3/4" sheating so whatever flooring I choose, I'll have to make up that 3/4" height. I'll end up sheathing the floor with 1/2" plywood underlayment and then applying tile directly do that. If you take your time and draw your layout to scale before starting, you can minimize cuts and small pieces. This will save you money in material and also make the install look cleaner.

 

Pugga good stuff. I plan on having help for all steps of this process. I have quite a few tools but I am still building the collection if you will. My house is only 30 years old but everything is original except for the floor. I plan on doing the whole room in tile then putting the base cabinents on top of the tile so I have less trim work to do. I figured finding the studs and then hitting them would be the hardest part along with getting everything level and square.

I plan on taking my time but I just dont want to get stuck over thinking things which happens because I want the job to come out well and therefore I am left thinking and not doing.

 

My last house was a fixer upper. Nothing beats watching it transform into your home.

We did a complete makeover, gutted the downstairs, sold the existing cabinets off CL (people use them for camps where I live). I have a few friends who are contractors that helped me. The thing I remember about tiling the kitchen was making sure the subfloor was clean, dry and level & having lots of clean water in a few buckets for the grout. My whole body hurt after tiling. Floor installers earn their money for sure.

Good luck, its sure is fun, just take your time and prep properly like you said you were going to do.

 

I am going to have to get all the glue and crap off of the sub-floor before I even think about putting a single tile down. At least that is how I understand it.

 

Do your cabinet boxes have integral kicks or seperate ladder kicks ?

 

They are both fairly easy tasks.
Hardest part about installing cabinets is making sure they are level. In my house in Virginia the floors weren't level and it took a bit more to make the cabinets level but you would never know the floor was jacked up.
As far as the floor goes, if you're going with tile, start with a layer of thinset under the backer board and then on top under the tiles. It'll make for a good foundation.

 

That I am not sure of. Honestly Im not sure what the difference is so if you could explain that would be helpful.

Here are the cabinets:
http://www.homecrestcab.com/products/detail.aspx?frpg=csel&room=K&line=BYPT&wood=H

 

Ahh I get it thanks for that advice. It looks like the backerboard will be alot like finishing drywall

 

Do the kicks come seperate from the cabinets ?

 

Cabinet base units have a "toe kick". It's that recessed area at the bottom where your toes can go so that you can stand closer to the cabinet.
This toe kick can be part (integral) of the cabinet box or it can be a separate base that installs first. Their crossmembers make them look sort of like ladders when they are assembled.

Jacking up the floor sounds like a big PITA
Just locate the high point in your base unit area and install the base units no lower than that.

Constant beam lasers are fairly inexpensive these days. Mounted on an inexpensive camera tripod makes installing cabinets (esp. base units) level, very simple. The camera tripod lets you precisely dial the beam up or down. It's the bee's knees.

I let the thing run the whole time and have a constant reference as I shim. I set it right on, with no offsets, when I can.
The whiskey stick (conventional stick level) doesn't get used very much.

 

I'm doing a cabinet install today OP

 

Looks nice, OZ.
Hopefully nice and warm, too.
Good winter job !

I don't see a laser.
Ya got laser technology up in the Great White North ?

 

oh, one thing with the upper cabinets, nail a board along the lower edge and use that to put up the cabinets. It'll make it EASY.

 

I use a seperate ladder kick system and use a rotary laser to set the kicks so that the tilers can do the floor before the cabinets arrived .

The boxes can just get ganged and attached after that .

 

That or a box / leg the correct offset on top of the base cabinets

 

OIC.
Good idea to keep the cabinets out of harm's way.
Floor guys sling lots of messy sh!t.

 

This.

Then you can put your temp ledger on the top (if needed) and patching screw holes is not as critical up there.

With no base units we sometimes use a "cabinet jack" and a temp ledger.
You can lift some heavy gangs that way.

 

Good stuff guys. I understand what the "kicks" are now I still do not know what I have. But I plan on laying all the tile and doing the whole floor even under where the cabinets will go before putting the cabinets in. I hope doing it that way will make things easier and help keep the cabinets clean. Leveling the base cabinets doesnt seem to tough but getting the wall ones up is what makes me nervous.

Oz those cabinets look good. All of this seems like something that I will be able to do on my own it will just take a little longer then if I payed to have the work done.

 

I'm going to hijack for a second OP....This thread has me convinced I can hang my own cabinets too. I attached our kitchen layout, right now we just have a shell, I hung new drywall and there are new hardwoods in, but I'm sure its a bit out of square. The cabinet makers will come in and take precise measurements, but what happens if we are an inch short on one side?

Here's our layout, it is just cabinets and an island running the length of the kitchen with no corners, I think that will probably make it easier, right?