Kitchen Remodel // Removing upper cabinets

We finally started on our kitchen remodel! And while we’ve been working on the kitchen for the past few days, I took step by step images for you guys. I will share my experience from this remodel in several blog posts, including any tips or tricks that I use along the way!

The Kitchen before we took them down.
The Kitchen before we took them down.

After IKEA called me to let me know that my cabinets would come one week earlier, I freaked and started emptying my cabinets that same evening. I decided to give the entire kitchen cabinets away, a simple Craigslist post took care of it, and 13 minutes later we had someone who came the next day to pick everything up.

Since this kitchen was going to a new owner, we had to be very careful on how to take the cabinets down. We had crown molding on top of the cabinets, which was nailed into place from above.

Taking down crown molding
Taking down crown molding

I used a simple screwdriver to get in between the openings, with a little pressure the nails released the crown molding and everything came off easily.

Remove Kitchen cabinet crown molding
Remove Kitchen cabinet crown molding

After the crown molding was taken down, we unscrewed the cabinets from each other. This was fairly simple and only took us a few minutes.

Taking down kitchen cabinets
Taking down kitchen cabinets

Then, Nakia made sure to be ready for the first cabinet to come down, all I had to do was unscrew a few screws from the back panel of each cabinet. We took down our first cabinet with such ease, that in a matter of 15 minutes we finished taking down all upper cabinets.

First cabinet down!
First cabinet down!

Tip:

  • make sure to use a utility knife for the sides, to cut along any caulking. We didn’t do it because we forgot, and as you can see in the picture above it had ripped away from our drywall, not bad but it could have been worse!
Upper kitchen cabinet takedown
After upper cabinets were taken down

It was an easy task to take these upper cabinets down, I am just glad whomever put the cabinets in didn’t glue them onto the wall.

Collect all screw taken out
Collect all screws taken out

We collected every single piece in a ziplock bag that came off the cabinets for the new owner. So glad I was able to help someone out with a free kitchen. This also saved us a few dollars, by not having to call the city for bulk item pickup.

Hope this little post helped you in some way to take your kitchen down, or at least inspired you to start remodeling.

You can find all my other attempts to get the best out of my old kitchen, here.

Stay tuned for the under cabinet takedown, you can subscribe to our blog via email here or on the right hand side if you don’t want to miss the next few posts.

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