How To Make Cabinets Fit Between Corner Bead On Walls

This is an interesting video I found that Tim Carter made. He is famous for starting the website called Ask The Builder. An approach for how to make a cabinet fit when the corner bead on the walls is in the way. I’m not really sure that I would ever let a customer see me do something like this video demonstration.

To be truthful, I totally disagree with this idea for making cabinets fit when the corner bead makes the wall smaller. Professional cabinet installers would never spread a wall so much that it cracked the corner bead joint on the wall. Here’s an insightful article: How To Fit Cabinets To Walls.

A better approach, in my respectful opinion, would have been for both cabinet scribes to have been cut one eight of an inch (1/8″) shorter and then the distance split four ways. The final cabinet caulking of one sixteenth of an inch next to the walls would have been acceptable. I mean after all the cabinets are white. I can guarantee no one would have ever known that there was a slight gap next to the wall of one sixteenth of an inch.

Another alternative to the way they installed this cupboard would have been to cut one quarters of an inch (1/4″) off of the wall scribe, installed the base cabinet and then added a filler to the right side of the cabinet next to the range. For more information about this go here:  How To Attach Fillers On Cabinets.

If you have been reading my posts for a while, you know by now that I always recommend being patient and doing things the right way. Spreading walls with a four pound sledge hammer is not the “right” way to make expensive kitchen cabinets fit when the corner bead is in the way.

To be totally honest with you, I’ve been installing kitchens and bathroom cupboards for over twenty five years and have never seen anyone do that type of damage to a wall. There is a right way and a wrong way to do things. Forcing things to move with a over-size hammer is not the correct way to install high-end kitchen cabinets.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a great tip, but you cannot spread walls that much when making cabinets fit between tight areas where the corner bead is in the way. I would recommend doing this if the area only needed to move about one sixteenth of an inch, but not a quarter of an inch.