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Fitted Kitchens |
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| Kitchens Home | FREE Kitchen Design | Wentworth Kitchens | Schuller kitchens | Pronorm kitchens | Omega Kitchens | |
Okay. The Fitted kitchens units have arrived. You feel so confident that you’ve arranged a dinner party for the weekend. Now then, where do you start fitting kitchens? It can’t be that difficult can it, your Dad did his own kitchen -all right, Mum was cooking on a camping stove in the living room for three months- but it looked fantastic when it was finished and they did eventually start talking again. I find that the least disruptive method of fitting kitchens is to start with your wall cabinets. Tools required for fitting kitchens:
Step 1: Marking the height of your kitchens wall units Always begin at the highest point after checking your floor level and transfer a line marking the top of the kitchens units, with your pencil, around the walls on which they are to be fitted. This will act as a guideline when levelling the units. The height will vary depending on which size kitchens wall units you are installing but generally you should aim to leave a space of 500mm between the top of the work surface and the underside of the cupboard. If you are installing a full height kitchens housing then its height will determine the height of the wall units and the line must be drawn at the same height. Step 2: Marking the kitchens wall bracket positions Next you will have to mark out the kitchens wall bracket positions. To determine this, unpack a wall cabinet and hold the bracket under the cabinet hanger. At the same time measure from the top of the kitchens units to the centre of the fixing holes in the wall bracket. Now, transfer this measurement to the wall, measuring down from the line that already marks the top of the wall units. Starting from the corner and using the spirit level, transfer the kitchens wall unit sizes, by a series of vertical lines on each elevation on which the units are to be fitted. From these lines, measure 22mm in and place the wall bracket so
that the fixing holes are central over the horizontal line that
marks the drilling points. Mark each hole with the pencil. Continue
this for each wall unit. The kitchens units are now ready to be fitted to the wall. The majority of kitchens wall units have fully adjustable hangers that come in a variety of configurations. These generally adopt a similar principle in that two adjustment screws can be accessed from the front of the units with a pozi drive screwdriver. This allows the kitchens installer to adjust levels both inwards and upwards or if necessary, outwards and downwards. Starting with the corner wall unit – raise unit above brackets, slide down till the cabinet hangers connect. Using a long hand screwdriver, tighten back to the wall ensuring the cabinet remains plumb. Now adjust height to the pencil line indicating the top of the wall units. You have just hung your first kitchens unit. Subsequent units will need to be fitted in the same way. If your kitchens corner is designed in a conventional way i.e. two separate units, now is the time to fit your corner post. Attach this to the correct unit using angle brackets or half blocks and after hanging and levelling the other unit, connect the two, again using half blocks or angle brackets fixed to the corner post. It is imperative that levels are maintained correctly for all dimensions
as this will make for easier door adjustment when they are fitted. |