Removable wall cabinets

[tigerxj]

Some background:

I graduate from my residency in June, start new 'real' job in July. My wife and I aren't ready to buy/build a permanent home yet. $120k+ of student loan debt and still owning your house from med school will do that to you.

As a result, we plan to rent, cheaply, for 1-2 ears while we pay down some debt and put away savings.

My dad recently sold me about $8k worth of medical-type cabinets, countertop, and wall cabinets. I got them for pennies on the dollar, since they were taking up space in a building he sold.

I want to mount these in my rental garage but have them removable so that I can take them with me when we move without too much damage to garage walls or to the cabinets.

I'm thinking of a cleat system, mounted to both the cabinet and wall, hang cabinets. When it's time to move, leave cleats on wall, take cabinet with me.

Thoughts?


What to do with the floor units? Level them and call it good? Any need to securely mount those? I suppose it depends on my intended use. Probably mostly storage, but I do a lot of work on my jeep, no real heavy fab or anything. Occasional wood working project. We mostly want a clean, organized garage with maximal space.

So how would you tackle it? I will probably store the countertops, and use 3/4" plywood for the counter tips until we install in our permanent home, as the countertops would need to be cut up to work in the rental garage (they are set up for a corner, but rental garage would be on a straight wall.

 

[Ray-CA]

Use a french cleat system to hang the uppers that way they just lift off the wall when you want to move. As for the base unit, you could probably use the same system to keep them against the wall and then just attach them to each others through the face frames.

Ray

 

[Voi]

My dad recently sold me about $8k worth of medical-type cabinets, countertop, and wall cabinets.

I'm thinking of a cleat system, mounted to both the cabinet and wall, hang cabinets. When it's time to move, leave cleats on wall, take cabinet with me.

What to do with the floor units? Level them and call it good? Any need to securely mount those?

So how would you tackle it? I will probably store the countertops, and use 3/4" plywood for the counter tips until we install in our permanent home, as the countertops would need to be cut up to work in the rental garage (they are set up for a corner, but rental garage would be on a straight wall.

First, congrats on finishing up your residency and med school.

I would absolutely use a cleat system for the uppers. It's an ideal way to hang shop cabinets regardless of whether it's a temporary situation or not.

Do the floor units have a built in toe kick? If they do I would cut it off and buy some leveling feet for the cabinets. Might even spring for some stronger steel ones since it sounds like these cabinets will be moved at least one more time in their life.

I don't know if I'd bother to save the counter tops for future use, unless they're really nice. Cut them up and use them and then upgrade to something really nice when you buy your first home.

 

[Vegaman_Dan]

French cleats would be the easiest way to do it. You can get the cleats level on the wall first, make sure they are the same on the cabinets, make it a very simple one person operation that way. You even have the option to slide them laterally a bit for adjustment.

If I hang any more cabinets, that's what I'll do.

 

[tigerxj]

Thanks guys. That's exactly what i was thinking, didn't know the name for it. I really liked that cleat panel in the video, should help to clean up some other storage things for me.

I think some of the cabinets have a toe kick, some don't. I'll look into levelers for the bases.

The counter top isn't super nice, I had given some thought to cutting it up and using as is. I mean this is just gonna be garage storage/work surface. It's probably gonna get cut up, holes drilled into it, burnt, etc.

I'll get some pictures of the cabinets after my phone charges.

 

[Mooniac]

Google for all kinds of great pics and fab instruction for cleat systems. Seem to be very popular with the woodworking crowd that build everything themselves...and it looks very simple to execute with just a little planning. A table saw and a level are about all you need for the basics. A self-leveling laser is really nice for cabinet layout too, and not much money these days. You might have to get creative to attach a wooden cleat to the back of the metal cabinets, but I imagine it would be pretty simple with some metal angle pieces and appropriate fasteners. If you need extra strength, just add another course of cleat.

Congrats on the score for the steel cabinets too. I wonder how many of those go to waste when medical buildings turn over.

When I built out my shop, I bought some Gladiator cabinet hanging kits on closeout for $11 each from a local Lowes, and attached them to metal Craftsman hanging cabinets (3x) and big storage locker cabinets (2x) and hung them on Gladiator gear tracks. That worked really well for me. My drywall was a little wavy (I didn't build or finish the garage!) so getting the hanging pieces "in" the tracks took some persuasion with a mallet, but it is holding up well so far. I'm not sure wooden cleats would have worked on the waviest part of the wall...

 

[tigerxj]

They aren't metal cabinets, but some sort of mdf laminate or melamine or something like. You see it commonly in nursing stations on hospital floors. I also scored about 3000 linear feet of trim from a spec house he built and sold for $3.1mil (ie nice stuff I'll prob trim my house with) and about 30 board feet of cherry that was left over from the mantels for that house, all about 5" thick

 

[Mooniac]

Ok, even easier to attach to wooden cleats then! I've seen some metal cabinets in the past from a hospital and just assumed they would be similar.

The trim and wood sound like nice scores as well!

 

[Retrosmith]

I just did multiple rows of cleats in my garage. I really like how I can move cabinets around.

 

[Richard Cranium]

sounds like a real score, I would like to pics of the cabinets

 

[dankicksass]

Another vote for french cleats. Simple and effective. You can use it all around your garage, make little individual cleat mounts for your longhandle tools, chainsaw, whatever. Get creative with it.