Adding feet and molding to cabinets

Adding feet and decorative molding to the butler’s pantry cabinets was a pretty straightforward and easy project. We started off with these cabinets.

I removed the shoe molding from the kick plate and we dry fit a 4” piece of poplar wood which is very smooth and solid. We chose to use solid wood instead of MDF because we were routering the top and MDF doesn’t look as crisp/sharp as real wood does when routered in my opinion.

I also installed one of the doors back on temporarily to ensure that it would fit once the molding was attached… I don’t always think ahead, but when I do I sure as shit am happy about it in the end! So the door fit and we were back on to the next step…

Using SmartDraw I designed the exact cutout I wanted for the feet. We did consider adding 4 feet (one for each set of cabinets) but in the end opted for just 2 which I am so glad we did!

My Super Awesome Hubby used the jigsaw to cutout the design and the router to add a nice ogee edge to the top. Since the wood is placed against about 1.5” of cabinet face all I needed to do was nail it directly into the face, very sturdy and simple. I then filled in all of the nail holes and a long dent I didn’t see when we bought the piece, I use spackling for this process rather than wood filler as it is quick to dry and sands very easily.

I also added a small chair rail backer piece of molding to the sides of both of the top and bottom cabinets. Just used some Loctite and 1.5” nails and it’s not going anywhere.