Are you thinking about extending your kitchen cabinets to the ceiling? This is a great home DIY project to add extra storage space, maximize dead space, and upgrade your kitchen on a budget! Take a look!
If you’re looking for a budget-friendly kitchen makeover idea, you’re in the right place.
We were in a similar place with our outdated, small kitchen and we needed to figure out a way to make it our own without spending a fortune.
That’s when I started looking up different ways we could upgrade the look and feel of our kitchen using the existing cabinets.
You see, kitchen cabinets can be expensive so new cabinetry was out of the question, but we realized, you don’t need to buy brand-new cabinets to give your kitchen an updated and efficient look!
You’d be surprised at how much impact some paint and simply extending your existing cabinets to the ceiling can have – it’s a great way to give any kitchen an instant facelift.
If you’re feeling ambitious, this is a perfect DIY project that can really transform the space without having too big of an impact on your wallet.
I didn’t keep track (I’m terrible at that!), but I think we spent less than $1500 and the final result really looks like we spent so much more.
In this blog post, I’ll share helpful tips and tricks for this home improvement project so you can get started on your own DIY transformation in no time.
This post is all about extending kitchen cabinets to the ceiling.
Please note: this post is intended to serve as an inspiration to give you great ideas for your own home and not as an exact tutorial. We love DIY and are pretty handy but we’re not professionals and I’m simply sharing what worked well for us. This project was relatively easy to complete but if you aren’t experienced with DIY projects, I highly recommend having a professional help out to ensure everything is done correctly.
Extending Kitchen Cabinets to the Ceiling
When we first started this DIY project, I really wasn’t sure if we could pull it off.
I had read a couple of posts about extending kitchen cabinets to the ceiling and it seemed easy enough, but this was by far the biggest project we had attempted to tackle, and I thought it would surely end up as one of those #pinterestfail moments.
For months, I debated whether we should fill in the space on top of the cabinets or raise them up to ceiling height and fill in with some open shelving underneath.
After much deliberation, we decided it would be best to keep the cabinets exactly where they were and create some built-ins on top of the existing cabinets to extend them up to the ceiling.
Not only would this be easier to do, but it was also more practical because raising the cabinets higher on the wall would have made it difficult to reach the highest shelves without purchasing entirely new taller cabinets.
Overall, the goal of this project was to create a little bit of extra storage space in our kitchen and make as big of a design impact as possible with as little money as possible.
Don’t mind the mess or the mediocre Christmas decorations that were probably still up in February.
The images above were the best “before” pictures I could find and I definitely needed to include them so you could see the amazing transformation.
When we first moved in, I HATED our kitchen!
It’s a small kitchen and the short wood cabinets and doors made it look even smaller.
I hated the outdated valence over the sink, the extra space above the tops of the cabinets, the countertops, the light fixtures, etc.
It all just felt like a drab rental property and not like my own home.
I knew with a limited budget, I wouldn’t be able to change everything on my wish list.
I wouldn’t be able to change the configuration of anything, wouldn’t be able to buy new appliances, a new range hood, or new cabinets, and would need to keep the same old countertops, so I had to be creative.
After a lot of research, raising the cabinets to the ceiling along with some new paint colors seemed to be the best option for this total kitchen makeover on a tight budget.
Step 1: Building the Boxes
In order to achieve a new built-in look for our builder-grade cabinets, the first thing we did was build a simple plywood box that fit above each of the cabinets.
The trickiest part about this was making sure to get the right measurements.
Our ceiling is not perfectly level (as most aren’t, especially in older homes) so we had to measure the height needed for each box individually.
For instance, our boxes above the cabinets over the fridge needed to be a little over 11 inches tall, and the boxes on the other side of the wall needed to be close to 12 inches tall.
That’s almost a whole inch difference!
You don’t really notice those things when you just look at a room, but it makes a big difference and would be very frustrating to build all of your boxes the same size, and then half of them don’t fit.
Yikes, that would be an easy way to ruin a good day.
I guess that’s why they say, “cut once, measure twice”.
To build the boxes, we used a standard 1/2-inch piece of plywood.
We cut 3 longer pieces for the back, top, and bottom of the box. And 2 shorter pieces for the sides of the box.
To put the boxes together, we found it helpful to use a right-angle clamp to ensure the corners were square.
We then used wood glue on all the joints and secured the boards in place with a nail gun.
We absolutely LOVE this battery-operated brad nailer from Ryobi! It has come in handy for so many of our home DIY projects!
It’s been well worth the small investment.
And, voila! Your cabinet boxes are complete.
The boxes are now ready to be installed on top of your upper cabinets.
At this point, there’s no need to worry about the small nail holes, we’ll fill those in later!
Step 2: Installing the boxes on top of your cabinets
On to the fun part!
After all that time spent building six separate cabinet boxes, it was finally time to install the boxes.
This is always the nerve-wracking part as you hope and pray you did a good job measuring and everything fits as you anticipated.
But, it’s also the exciting part because you finally get to see your vision coming to life.
The actual installation of the boxes was pretty simple.
We just put the boxes up above the wall cabinets they fit over and then used screws and our trusty power drill to attach them to the stud in the wall behind them.
We love our Milwaukee brand drill, but if you’re looking for something a bit more affordable, we’ve also really enjoyed using our drill from Ryobi.
Step 3: Adding the Trim
Now it’s time for the finishing touches.
Some people will choose to do crown molding at the top of the cabinets, but our ceilings aren’t very high in the kitchen so we didn’t have a ton of extra space for trim.
For this reason, we opted to go with a basic 1-inch trim piece along all the edges to cover the seams.
This also matched the trim we used for the shiplap wall in our mudroom.
We trimmed out the horizontal lines first and attached them with some wood glue and our nail gun.
You may think you don’t need the glue if you’re also using nails but nails really aren’t all that strong (especially these small brad nails) and the glue will help to prevent the trim from warping.
After we put trim around the new cabinet boxes, we decided to extend the trim down the sides of both the upper and lower cabinets to give the kitchen a more cohesive and custom look.
Once all the trim was complete, we used some painter’s caulk along all the edges, and seams.
We also used it to fill in all the small nail holes.
Caulking is a step a lot of amateur DIY’ers skip, but in my opinion, it’s one of the most critical steps if you want to achieve a professional look.
It’s time-consuming especially when there are tons of seams like in this kitchen project, but it’s so worth it in the end.
Step 4: Paint and admire!
After all of the caulk was dry, we painted the cabinets with the Sherwin Williams Emerald Urethane Trim Enamel paint in the colors “pure white” on top and “anchors away” on the bottom.
We then filled in the upper boxes with a variety of decorative elements like baskets and small kitchen items to add some coziness to the space.
This project finally gave us a place to store the nice dishes we received for our wedding several years ago.
Overall, extending your kitchen cabinets to the ceiling is an excellent choice if you’re looking for an affordable way to fill in the space on the tops of your cabinets.
[RELATED: Navy and White Kitchen Cabinets | DIY Two Tone Kitchen Transformation]
The transformation we made to our old cabinets really turned out stunning!
After painting the cabinets and installing a couple of open shelves, it changed our entire kitchen feel and took our home decor up a big notch.
All this without having to buy custom cabinets or special ceiling-height cabinetry.
I’d say that’s a win!
We hope that this blog post will inspire you and other homeowners who are looking for ways to spruce up their space without breaking the bank.
And, if you liked this be sure to check out our other affordable home DIY projects like our board and batten entryway or our mudroom bench project!
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