Undercabinet Lights, frameless

[Brian Shannon]

How are others making upper frameless cabinets to accept undercabinet "Puck" lights without using a valance? I was thinking of using a drop-in shelf @ the bottom to leave about a 1 1/2"- 2" area between it and the bottom of the cabinet. Just but spacers/cleats all around 1st. Any other ideas?


Brian

[DanEpps]

That sounds reasonable as long as they are not halogen lights that reach about (seems like) 20,000 degrees. LED lights would probably work well in a configuration like that.

[Rick Palechuk]

We do a double shelf Brian. Cut them over-size, drill and then rout a slot in the bottom one. then glue and pin them together. Finally we cut to size and edge-band. We use 10 watt halogen for these.HTH

[DanEpps]

Rick

Don't the halogen bulbs get super hot or have they made changes to the design? I had halogen pucks in my kitchen and they were HOT so I changed them to LEDs.

They were surface mounted and, I'm sure, well insulated on the backs but they put out a lot of heat.

[Michael S Murray]

we use a light rail as standard on all our kitchens. If you dont want to see it, just use a simple flat rail and then drop your doors down flush with the bottom of it. Same look as no light rail, lots less work!

[Brian Shannon]

I may do that Mike since I am not going to be installing the lights and am not sure what they will use. I will just need to tell the electrician where to run the wire.

Thanks guys,


Brian

[John J. Desmond]

Brian,

You could place a box under the cabinet. Attache a false bottom with a 1" edge. It would smaller than the actual cabinet. It would be similar to having an undercabinet stereo. Won't look just like that but I think you understand. Basically a false bottome that is only the size they need to install the lights.

John Desmond

[Gary Puckett]

Brian,

Make your wall cabinet 3" taller. Then place your bottom fixed shelf 3" from the bottom. Leave the 3' cavity open in the back. ( thats where you put the puck light ) Make your door the full length of the cabinet less 1" to allow a 1/2" reveal on top and bottom .

Gary

[Rick Palechuk]

Dan, that's why we use 10 watt bulbs. It's not my favorite way, but some clients want it like that. I prefer to do them with a light rail and valance.

[Kerry Fullington]

Brian,

There is a new system for building cabinets that is just starting to catch on where you put a solid wood frame on the face of your cabinet boxes. This way you can adjust the size of the bottom of the frame to hide any lights etc.

Just kidding.

Kerry

[Michael S Murray]

Ive heard about that Kerry, But I dont think it will catch on, I tried it, wastes a lot of space, hardware is way to time consuming to mount and hard to adjust. ETc, so forth, and so on.....

[Brian Shannon]

Very funny Kerry! I AM one of those Face Frame guys. 98 percent of my work is Face Frame but let's not go there. Now I have 2 Frameless jobs going. I wasn't going to turn them away... Even with Face Frame I would need to build a false bottom to house the "puck" lights. Just wondering how others are doing it.


Brian

[Kirt F. Bowman]

One method that hasn't been offered is to make the doors 2" longer on the bottom this hides the lights and creates a seamless look with very little added expense. Very high end euro companies do this as an option. the other cool thing, you don't need hardware on the upper doors. they can be grabbed easily and pulled open.

cheers

[justin mason]

if you decide to make the doors longer becarfull about hinge boring.
I am doing the same thing now. lower the doors and add valance behind doors and also a 1/4" skin up under to conceal any wires.
very clean look, maybe time consuming but we are used to doing lots of extra work to get finely tuned details.
hope it goes well for you.

JM