Standing on the shoulders of cabinets

January 14, 2023 11:48 AM

I need to stand on top of some of the cabinetry in my kitchen to be able to do some ductwork. The space is awkward enough that getting a ladder in to the space so I could reach it would be difficult, bordering on impossible. (I'd be working in a skylight above a floating cabinet above our range.) I'm a larger adult man (230lbs, 6'2"); will this cabinetry be able to support my weight without reinforcement, or should I put some sort of struts in to shore it up against the countertop below?
posted by kdar to Home & Garden (12 answers total)

Best answer: Last time I pulled cabinetry off a wall it was held in place by just a few screws and nails. They were probably matched up to the studs but I didn’t really check. I wouldn’t trust it with my weight, particularly the additional forces of my moving weight since cabinets are designed to support static objects. Don’t do it.
posted by migurski at 11:56 AM on January 14, 2023 [5 favorites]

Best answer: Your plan sounds quite dangerous, with or without the struts. I wouldn't risk it myself.

Without seeing the specific setup, it's hard to come up with a safer alternative.
posted by alex1965 at 11:57 AM on January 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: absolutely not, with or without the struts. the attachment to the wall isn't made to bear your weight, and neither are the cabinets themselves.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 12:05 PM on January 14, 2023 [4 favorites]

Best answer: I'm of a similar size and would never do this, simply because even if you shore it up from the bottom, cabinets aren't constructed to handle significant weight themselves; either the cabinet would fall off the wall or the cabinet would just break apart. Unfortunately, this means that the ladder solution, which borders impossible, is not actually IN impossible, where the cabinets lie. You'll have to figure that out.
posted by Pacrand at 12:05 PM on January 14, 2023 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I'd look for studs in the wall behind the cabinets, then use very large (4" long?) wood screws to attach a 2x4 to the wall. Build or bring in a sturdy structure of the same height to place in front of the cabinet, and put 2x4's horizontally between the wall-attached-board and the structure, fastening them with some nails (or, if you can't fit a hammer in there, drill opposing holes and use short dowel sections and/or glue). Put some wide boards or plywood on that for a more solid platform. Find small tables or wood boxes to make a kind of staircase up to the platform.

Then I'd think, oh, maybe I should have seen if Home Depot will rent me some appropriate scaffolding, or I could have at least called the excellent contractor service we sometimes use and ask for advice.

Then I'd think, wait, don't I have a sturdy dresser (or could I buy one used off Craigslist) that will fit in the kitchen aisle so I can stand on that?

In short: maybe anything but the cabinets.

Desperate last resort: maybe you could take the cabinets out temporarily?
posted by amtho at 12:07 PM on January 14, 2023 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I think he means standing on the base cabinets, that are resting on the floor.

FWIW, I've stood on those kinds of cabinets often, but I'm a bit smaller.
posted by amtho at 12:08 PM on January 14, 2023

Best answer: I just deleted my answer because he did say floating cabinet and I made the same mistake.

Hell no. It won't take your weight, it isn't really meant to take your weight even if you shored it up (god forbid it's particleboard rather than plywood), and you have a long way to fall if it gives.

Seconding taking them out. They might be surprisingly easy to dismount, so at least have a look.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 12:13 PM on January 14, 2023

Best answer: getting a ladder in to the space so I could reach it would be difficult, bordering on impossible

Would a nifty folding ladder help? I have one very like this that fits in the back seat of my tiny little car when folded, yet easily gets me up onto my roof when fully extended. And one of the ways it can be set up is with three sections straight and the last one angled, which might let the top end reach over the top of a floating cabinet to rest securely against the wall above and behind it.
posted by flabdablet at 12:21 PM on January 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: If you can't take the cabinets down temporarily, then I'm on team "hell no" and also on team "rent scaffolding".
posted by rhooke at 1:10 PM on January 14, 2023 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I weight a bit less than you do, and I'd never stand on the "floating" upper kitchen cabinets, even with some kind of jury rigged support underneath I'd maybe consider climbing on cabinets if they were those super overbuilt old-school ones that you see sometimes, built from thick solid wood, but even then you are at the mercy of a few screws holding it all to the wall. It's worth spending some time to figure out a safe way to do this, whether with a folding ladder like was linked above, scaffolding, etc.

Reddit's Whatcouldgowrong subreddit has some cautionary videos about exactly this.
posted by Dip Flash at 1:34 PM on January 14, 2023

Response by poster: Perfect, thank you all for your feedback. It seemed unlikely that this would work well but I wanted to double-check; this isn't the kind of topic that's trivial to Google. I'll find some other way of making this work.
posted by kdar at 1:43 PM on January 14, 2023 [5 favorites]

Even before I read the answers I was thinking "I'm going to see this on /r/whatcouldgowrong, aren't I?"
posted by zadcat at 2:17 PM on January 14, 2023 [2 favorites]