Toe Kicks for Dummies

toe kick dimensions

The "contributors," as the freelancers call themselves. at eHow.com rarely seemed to be ashamed of the dreck that they published¹ — although some of them really, really should. One reason, we guess, is that some of the most flagrant dumbassery salespeople use pseudonyms. We've found them using their initials ("Vee Enne"), their kids' names ("Cayden Conor"), or pure nonsense ("Jagg Xaxx"), but Cleveland van Cecil is a new twist: Cleveland appears to be a dog who belongs to Daniel Cecil... which may explain why he did such a poor job of writing the HomeSteady.com post, "How to Cut a Toe Kick on Cabinets."

Cleveland (or Daniel, if you prefer) was clearly confused. According to him,

"Floor cabinets, such as in the kitchen, have a gap underneath the cabinet doors. If not covered, this area becomes a space for dust, mice and other annoyances. A toe kick can cover this space..."

Oh, Danny, that's soooooo wrong: the space is the toe kick, a little recess where your toes go when you stand at the sink or the counter. It's a much more ergonomic configuration than having a cabinet front that goes straight to the floor. You should have figured that out from your reference, the one that referred to them as "toe kick plates, or toe kick boards." The reference is all about "installing the pieces of wood to the cabinet notched areas next to the floor": the notched areas called the "toe kick."

There are two ways to cut the toe kicks for cabinets: you could notch the side face of every base cabinet; or you can do what a lot of cabinet-makers do: set a base frame 3½ to 4" high underneath the casework of the base cabinets, at a depth of about three inches from the face frame to form the toe kick. That means you only need to cut a notch on exposed end panels.

"Cleveland" walked his reader through (one version of) installing the toe kick plates, complete with details like,

"Insert a tube of caulk into a caulk gun and cut off the tip. Apply a thin bead of caulk along the gap between the cabinet and the toe kick to finish the project."

Of course, the proof of ignorance is in the pudding, this step in his instructions:

"Attach the toe kicks with finishing nails."

Given that the toe kick is a gap, attaching one is gonna be pretty hard to do! With expertise like that, it's no wonder that van Cecil is our Dumbass of the Day for the fifth time. It doesn't help that one of his references is for hanging wall cabinets: they don't even have toe kicks!

Well, he's actually pretty smart... for a dog.

¹ Although one of our serial DotD  awardees has stripped a lot of the content we've featured here out of her HubPages.com account (look for the name that appears in bold red letters)

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DDIY - CABINETS