Need to set kitchen upper cabinets away from the rear wall

Hello Everyone,

I am in the process of renovating our kitchen, starting with new cabinets. Part of it is removal of the soffits and taller cabinets to reach the ceiling. In order to clear the reason for one of the soffits, I need to float the cabinets on one wall out about 2 1/2" from the rear cabinet wall. I will have a 1 5/8" divider on one end separating the fridge space from this set of cabinets and the other side is a corner with a 24" corner cabinet going in. The cabinet between the corner cabinet and the divider wall is a 30" short cabinet that will also hold a microwave.

My question is, if I run some 2x6's mounted to the studs near the top and bottom of the cabinet (leaving enough space on the bottom to add a matching filler board) and mount the cabinets to those, should I need to worry about them holding up well? I will have the corner cabinet into the 2x6's on one side and into the studs on the other. I also plan on attaching the two cabinets through the face to each other and the microwave-holding cabinet into the divider wall. The microwave is deep enough that it will be attached at the rear wall and to the cabinet above it. Thanks in advance for any insight.

 

If you put them horizontally, I would stack two 2x4s and lay them on the flat, putting pairs of fasteners into the existing studs . For your 3" side, that would be 2 pieces of 2x4 stacked. On the 2 1/2" side, either rip the 2nd piece down to 1" on a table saw or use 2 rips of 1/2" plywood to equal 2 1/2" Be sure you position the height on the wall correctly so that they are level and so you can easily hit them when you go to screw the cabinets to the wall.

You will want to check the corners for square. If anything is out of square, that will affect the width of your filler to the right of the fridge. So you might want to save that for last, after the other cabinets are installed, and actually measure what you have left to work with. That 3" filler might also need to be scribed to the wall if it's not perfectly straight or plumb.

 

I agree two horizontal 2x4s well secured would work well.

Another option would be to build a stud wall with 2x4 or 2x3s on the 2" width. This would allow the weight of the cabinets and microwave to be well-supported and a solid wall to have a backsplash mounted to.