A soffit is a great way to hide those ugly pipes over your kitchen cabinets.

In this kitchen we are building down from the celling by adding a soffit to meet the cabinets, giving this area a nice finished look. It's easy and here is how it's done.

You have to figure out the measurement of where your cabinets will be placed. So I determine the height of our soffit, is ten and three quarters down from the celling. Now here is a tip. Remember to factor in the depth of the dry wall that you are using. Whether it's three eighth, half inch, or five eighth of an inch. Standard upper cabinets are 12 inches deep, therefore the depth of the soffit should be at least 13 to 14 inches, to allow finishing off the face of the soffit.

The next step would be to draw, mark or snap a chalk line to the dimension of your soffit. Okay, this line is going to be the bottom of our soffit, and we will snap a line for the top. Now that the dimensions are determined and marked, it's time to cut 2X4 top and wall plates.

Now because these walls are newly taped, we can determine where the wall studs are. So we are going to be using pneumatic nail gun to secure the wall plate. Okay, your next step would be, once the top and wall plates are in place, would be to cut the down supports and the supports off of the wall, which will create the framework for the soffit.

If you are going to be doing this installation on your own, it may be wise to invest in a set of clamps like these, to hold the framework in place, so that you can screw it to the top plate. Alright, great. Now these are the final pieces that completes the framework on which the dry will be attached to.

Now a quick tip that can help you along in the process, is to mark the studs where you are going to be screwing the dry wall to. You will be sure and hit the stud every time.

Okay, the framework is up, it's secured. The next thing to do, is to measure off from the dry wall. Now once we have the measurements, we are going to transfer them to the dry wall. We will be cutting it using the utility knife. Bring the board back into place and screw it up to the frame line. Okay, before I can close up the face of the board, we need to finish in the celling piece. For the celling, it's going to be interlocked and be held up by the face of the soffit.

Okay, so dry wall is up, the soffit is enclosed. Then the next and last step would be to install the corner v, which gets the soffit ready for tape, speckle, and paint. Okay, so the soffit is functional, it looks great, and it was easy to do.