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How to fit a cupboard over the fridge?

LouiseD1

I would like to put a cupboard above my fridge, however my fridge cavity is 965cm wide and standard cupboards are 950cm wide. How can I pad out the ends and still attach the cupboard securely? (I don't want the expense of a custom made as I'm doing this on a tight budget.) The fridge cavity walls are masonry brick covered by drywall.

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MitchellMc

Hi @LouiseD1,

If your fridge cavity is 965 mm wide and the cabinet is 950 mm wide, you only need to make up 15 mm total.

With masonry behind the plasterboard, you could:

Fix 7–8 mm packers (or a 15 mm batten on one side) to the cabinet sides.
Lift the cabinet into position.
Drill through the cabinet side and packer/batten into the masonry.
Install masonry anchors/screws through the cabinet, packer and plasterboard into the brick.

That way the packers become part of the cabinet assembly, and the wall fixings clamp everything together.

The cabinet could have a solid top or back rail that can also take a couple of fixings into the wall. Even one or two additional masonry fixings through the rear rail helps prevent any tendency for the cabinet to twist or rack over time.

For only a 15 mm difference, centring the cabinet with approximately 7.5 mm packing on each side usually gives the best finished look. Window packers are often an easy way to achieve this accurately and inexpensively.

One other thing to check before installing: make sure there is still adequate ventilation clearance above and around the fridge as recommended by the fridge manufacturer. This is often more important than filling every gap tightly.

Let me tag @Nailbag to see if they have any thoughts.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Mitchell

Nailbag

Hi @LouiseD1

Could you please send through a few photos of the current scenario? Just packing the difference structurally will work, but it needs to be cosmetically correct so it doesn't look like a patch job.

Nailbag

LouiseD1

Hi Nailbag.

My cavity space is 600mm high to the bottom of the cornice and width 965mm.
I'm considering the Bunnings

Bedford 900mm White High Moisture Resistant Open Wall Cabinet 900mm x 600mm x 300mm

$135

https://www.bunnings.com.au/bedford-900mm-white-high-moisture-resistant-open-wall-cabinet_p0083640

LouiseD1

LouiseD1

The Bedford cabinet will only be able to be attached at the sides to the wall, as it isn't deep enough to reach the back wall, so it can't have rear attachment.

R4addZ

Hi @LouiseD1

The gaps on either side (7.5mm) would not be worth trying to fill with a matching laminated filler piece. The question is, would it be worth offsetting the cupboard to one side and using a 15mm filler piece or would that look worse than a 7.5 mm bead of filler either side? If you wanted to add rear fixings to the cupboard, you could install battens across the back, again screwed (or anchored) into the side walls and then screw the cupboard to that.

Edited to add, if you are going to stop at the cornice (height wise) that should allow ventilation for the fridge to go above the cupboard but if you plan on fitting a cornice to cover above the cupboard front then you would have ventilation issues.

JacobZ

Hi @LouiseD1,

As @R4addZ mentioned, you have a bit of a decision to make in terms of placement, whether you have even 7.5mm gaps on either side and use beads of caulk to cover them, or to have the cabinet hard against one side, then use a filler piece on one side.

Personally, I think even spacing would look much better.

To achieve this, you can simply pack out the sides of the cabinet using window packers at the location of the screws.

You can then attach your cabinet to the side walls using wall plugs and chipboard screws.

Now with that slight gap on each side, there would be a slight cantilever to your screws, which isn't ideal. For this reason, I think R4addz idea of adding battens behind the cabinet alongside the side fixings would be a good idea. You could use 70x35 and attach your battens to the side walls using a couple of angle brackets.

Once everything is fixed in place, you can push some https://www.bunnings.com.au/moroday-10mm-x-5m-white-gap-filler-rod_p4061881 into the gaps on each side, then cover the filler rod with https://www.bunnings.com.au/selleys-450g-dulux-natural-white-no-more-gaps-interior-colours-gap-filler_p0266916 to give it a clean, finished look.

Let me know what you think.

Jacob

Noyade

I was thinking two 'rails' to the walls. Slide your cupboard into place - screw the base flush with the wall and then mitred 'architrave' around to close the gaps.

Just a thought @LouiseD1