Adding Moldings to your Kitchen Cabinets

A plain honey oak kitchen gets a good amount of style and elegance by adding moldings to its cabinets.

It was about time to give this kitchen a good amount of beauty!

That’s my word for moldings:  BEAUTY.

Before I get into all the little details about the moldings, let me do a little recap. 

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The honey oak kitchen that you see in the picture below was our command center for more than 10 years. It was already showing the signs of the use and abuse that we inflicted upon it, so yeah, this was the starting point to a full kitchen makeover.

The kitchen island was the first project to be tackled off the list. 

Then, a refrigerator enclosure was built to somehow try to hide that big elephant in the room.

The next step in this kitchen makeover was building and installing a range hood, and soon after the space above the cabinets was closed in. 

Yep. No more dusting that space up there.

Nothing fancy huh.

This kitchen now needed moldings to make it look expensive!

Adding moldings to your kitchen cabinets is a great way to customize your kitchen on a very low budget. 

The main tools you will need are a brad nailer, miter saw, and a tape measure.

The moldings that I used are these: 

• crown molding
• wall molding
• 1/2" x 3/4" pine molding
• base cap
• screen bead molding
• lattice molding ¼" x 2"
• half-round molding

Let's take a look at how these moldings were used. By the way, they were all found at our local Home Depot.

1. MOLDING USED AT THE BOTTOM OF THE CABINETS

I didn't have much space to work below the doors on those kitchen cabinets, and that's why I had to add the molding on the very bottom part of them.

I made the molding myself by getting a wall molding and on the back of it, a long piece of 1/2" x 3/4" pine molding was attached (picture below).

Both pieces were glued and nailed together. Then, they were cut as needed (mitering the corners). 
They were attached to the bottom of the cabinets using brand nails.

To the left is the wall molding, the two little lines
represent the nails to attach them to the bottom of the cabinets.

2. MOLDING USED AROUND THE BASE OF THE RANGE HOOD

The molding used on the base of the range hood was a base cap with a simple profile. Mirroring its placement on the top and bottom of that base.

3. MOLDING USED TO CLOSE THE GAP AT THE TOP OF THE CABINETS

The gap in between the top of the cabinets and the newly installed MDF header was covered using this small screen bead molding.

  Once in place, it looked like this, second horizontal molding from top to bottom:

4. MOLDING INSTALLED ON MDF TOP PANEL

Another piece of molding was also installed a little bit higher than the one before. That wall molding is the same that was used on the bottom of the cabinets. It was nailed to the top MDF board that was used to cover the space above the cabinets. This molding helps to visually break that big empty space (first molding from the top, above picture).

5. SIDE OF CABINET MOLDINGS

On the side of the cabinets overlooking the window, lattice molding ¼" x 2" was installed to give those cabinet sides the look of “recessed” panels.

6. CROWN MOLDING

The crown molding was the last one to be installed. I think this is the one molding that gave those cabinets a full punch of style! 

Have trouble installing crown molding?

Check an easy way on how to cut crown corners right HERE.

Once all the trim was installed, this is how my little kitchen looked. 😍😍

Do you see potential??

Yes, I do!

At this point, it was just waiting for caulking to fill gaps and holes, and then, sanding and painting everything.

7. TRIMMING THE RANGE HOOD

I used half-round molding as a decorative detail on the front of the range hood. It was glued in place after everything was painted. 

You can check the complete details on how to paint the kitchen cabinets right HERE.

Let's check those final pics when everything was said and done!

The cabinets with the lower molding on them...

The refrigerator enclosure...

And the range hood.

PIN IT!

Here's how the kitchen looked with a new roman shade treatment. ❤️

Here's a quick guide on the moldings:

Once again, here are all the links to all the work done to this kitchen:

how to paint the cabinets.
Install a marble backsplash.
Close the space above the kitchen cabinets
Build a range hood.
Build a fridge enclosure.
Update the kitchen island
Tips about installing recessed lights
Final kitchen reveal
Kitchen cost breakdown
1 ½ Year Later How the Kitchen is Holding up
Build-in Plate Rack
Pull Out Shelves in Pantry
LG Appliances Review and Complain

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