This video kicks off our 3-part mini-series on installing your kitchen island. Before bringing in any island cabinets, we walk through how to plan and position the island by locating its exact footprint in the room. We cover key considerations like countertop overhang, nearby HVAC elements, and identifying the highest point on the floor. Proper planning at this stage ensures your island is placed accurately and sets up a smooth installation.
Video Transcript
Justin:
It's a glorious day here at Cabinet Joint. I'm Justin and today I'm here with Josh and we are going to be talking about how to install your kitchen island. Josh, in the last video we went ahead and installed all of the perimeter cabinets and everything went smooth. What can we do to prepare to make sure our island install goes just as smoothly?
Josh:
Yeah. Most everybody should have a design packet from us, and we've roughly laid out the clearances and walkway widths that we're aiming for. On site, you sometimes have to make adjustments—if you have mechanical coming through the floor, you may need to move the island over an inch or two. In this situation, this worked out well.
What we're really looking to do is we know that we have a parallel cabinet run here. Now we can measure off of this run at two points and connect that line. What we've created is a parallel line with the walkway. In this situation, it's a 42" walkway. We've made sure to account for countertop overhang in that 42". Realistically, we'll have 43" to 44" between the front of this cabinet and the line we draw on the ground. It's important that we are parallel with this run so everything looks square and finishes off square.
The other thing is, just like before with our story pole, we're going to find the highest elevation of this island and work from that high elevation outwards. We do have an air vent that we're working around. We're putting a duct extension on that. Part of the planning process is making sure it runs under a cabinet and not between two cabinets. It worked out well for us here.
We also know that we have the overhang on the island for the countertop. We want to make sure that we've considered the overhang on the run as well so everything aligns properly. We use the laser as our aid. What's nice about this laser is we can shoot a perpendicular, perfectly square reference line. Off of our first line, we strike a second line square to that and basically outline the depth footprint of our cabinets.
Justin:
So Josh, what you're saying is it's vital that these cabinets are installed first. That way we can make sure everything is nice and straight and parallel.
Josh:
Yes. Yes, that's ideal. Now that we have everything laid out, the next steps are to put the duct extension for the floor vent in and mount the cleats to the floor. We want to make sure that once we put this island in place—before the cabinet countertops come in—nobody can nudge it and knock it out of alignment or out of our footprint.
We have some cleats that we're going to mount down. The cabinets will sleeve over those cleats, we’ll make the connection with a fastener, and it won't go anywhere.
Justin:
Awesome, Josh. Well, thank you. If you have any questions on how to lay out your island, you can reach out to your cabinet coach or call us at 888-211-6482.
Thank you for watching. Have a great day.
