Toe Kick Dimensions and Options: Height, Depth, Boards and Baseboard

A toe kick is the recessed strip at the bottom of a base or tall cabinet that lets your feet slide under the counter, so you can stand close without leaning. On the Fabuwood, US Cabinet Depot, KCD and J&K framed cabinets we sell it is 4½ inches tall and set back about 3 inches from the door face (J&K's drawing puts it 2½ inches behind the face frame), and it is already counted in the cabinet's 34½-inch height. The box ships with a raw plywood or adjustable-leg base; the finished face is a separate 8-foot board, cut and fitted after the cabinets are set. Below are the real numbers by cabinet line, the boards and caps you order with their prices, the alternatives (flush, furniture base, legs, no kick at all), how cabinet baseboard differs, and what to do at end panels, islands and appliances.

Table of Contents

• Standard Toe Kick Height and Depth
• What Each Cabinet Line Ships Under the Box
• Kick Boards, Skins and Caps: What You Order
• Recessed, Flush, Furniture Base, Legs or No Kick
• Cabinet Baseboard vs the Kick
• How the Kick Board Is Fitted After the Cabinets Are Set
• End Panels, Islands and Peninsulas
• Dishwashers, Ranges and Refrigerators
• Drawers in the Toe Space
• Heaters, Vents and Lighting at Floor Level
• Accessible Kitchens and the 9-Inch Toe Space
• Frequently Asked Questions

Standard Toe Kick Height and Depth

Two numbers define the recess: how tall it is and how far it sits back from the cabinet face. Height is the one the manufacturers print. Fabuwood's Allure spec book describes a "¾″ x 4½″ unfinished plywood" kick attached to every base and tall cabinet, and the finished covers for Fabuwood, US Cabinet Depot, KCD and J&K are all 4½ inches tall to match. You will see 3½ or 4 inches quoted online. Some custom shops build that low, but it isn't what these lines ship.

Depth is the number most spec books leave out. Of the spec books we checked, J&K's is the one that dimensions it: its base cabinet drawing puts the kick 2½ inches behind the face frame, which with a ¾-inch door is about 3¼ inches to the door face. Fabuwood, US Cabinet Depot and KCD don't print a setback, and other makers may differ by half an inch or so. Before you order trim or plan an appliance next to existing cabinets, measure yours: put a square on the floor against the kick and read the distance to the door face.

The height is inside the cabinet's stated size, not added to it. This is the arithmetic every countertop height depends on:

If you want a lower counter, the factory can shorten the kick rather than the box: Fabuwood's CUT-TK modification ($78.00) reduces it to a height you specify, with no minimum, or removes it entirely and ships the board loose. A taller counter is usually done the other way, by setting the cabinets on a built-up platform. For the full set of counter, wall and clearance numbers, see our guide to standard kitchen cabinet sizes, and for where the kick sits among the other parts of a box, our anatomy of a kitchen cabinet.

What Each Cabinet Line Ships Under the Box

"Comes with a kick" means different things depending on the line. Some build a structural plinth into the cabinet and sell only the finished face; frameless lines often stand on legs and clip a board on afterward. Here is what the spec books say for the lines we carry:

The practical difference shows up during leveling. On a built-in plywood plinth like Allure's, the installer shims under the sides where they meet the floor; our leveling and shimming guide shows exactly where. On legged frameless boxes like Illume, each foot screws up or down and the clip-on board covers the legs. That makes an out-of-level floor easier to deal with, though the board may need scribing where the floor dips, since the legs, not the board, carry the cabinet. If you are still choosing between construction types, our framed vs frameless comparison covers the rest.

Kick Boards, Skins and Caps: What You Order

The finished face goes by many names: toe kick board, skin, cover, kick plate, plinth. Our glossary entry on the kick plate lists the synonyms. Whatever you call it, it ships in 8-foot sticks in the cabinet finish and is cut to length on site. Shop them by finish on our kick board page. These are the parts in Fabuwood's Galaxy finishes (the price is the same for every standard Galaxy color) and in US Cabinet Depot Shaker White:

Galaxy's oak finishes, Natural Oak and Desert Oak, cost more: in Natural Oak the TK8 is $71.50 and the TK8-3/4 is $74.75. In Illume and Ovela the TK8-3/4 is $113.75 per length, and Illume replacement legs come as a four-pack (ITKL-4, $11.05).

Two things in the spec book are worth knowing before you choose. First, the ¼″ TK8 is moisture-resistant MDF, and Fabuwood warns that its green core shows on a cut edge. That's fine where the cut lands in an inside corner or against a wall; it isn't fine on an outside corner in plain view, which is what the cap or a miter is for. Second, the TK8-3/4 is edge-banded on the bottom, which helps the edge that sits on a wet-mopped floor.

How much to order. Measure the length of every base and tall cabinet face that touches the floor, add each exposed side (island ends, a peninsula, a run that stops in the open), and divide by 8 feet. Then add one stick. Each piece is cut to fit, one mis-cut uses up a whole length, and a stick from a later production batch may not match the first exactly. A typical L-shaped kitchen with about 20 feet of base cabinets takes three sticks plus the spare. For the rest of the trim list, crown, light rail, quarter round and scribe, see our cabinet molding types guide.

Recessed, Flush, Furniture Base, Legs or No Kick

The standard recess is the right default for working cabinets: it is comfortable, it hides the scuffs from feet and vacuums, and it forgives an uneven floor because the shadow line hides small gaps. The alternatives are mostly about how the cabinet looks, and each costs something in comfort or effort.

From the job site: flush bases look great in pictures, but the face takes every kick and mop, so we keep flush to the sides of an island nobody stands at. And going without a kick isn't the same as going without support: a wall-hung run puts the whole load on the wall, which is a framing job. Our guide to floating kitchen cabinets covers the blocking, and our vanity sizes and heights guide covers the platform heights for bathrooms.

Cabinet Baseboard vs the Kick

Does wall baseboard run behind the cabinets? No. Room baseboard stops where the cabinets begin and starts again where they end. Pull the old baseboard before the cabinets go in so the boxes sit tight to the wall, and cut the new baseboard to die into the end panel or the side of the last cabinet. Left in place, it pushes every base out by its thickness and throws off the countertop overhang.

Is a cabinet "baseboard" the same as a kick board? Also no. A kick board is a flat 4½-inch strip that sits back in the shadow. Cabinet base board molding is a taller, profiled board in the cabinet finish that runs at the face, the way baseboard runs along a wall. Fabuwood's BBM is 5½ inches tall (the price list names it 5¼″; its drawing and dimension note say 5½″) by 8 feet, with an edge profile matched to the door style ($188.50 in Galaxy, $282.75 for a 10-foot length), and US Cabinet Depot's Furniture Base Moulding is 4-15/16 inches tall ($91.52 in Shaker White). You use it when the cabinet base is flush, on an island, a hutch or a built-in, to make cabinetry read as furniture. It doesn't replace the recess at a working counter.

Where the kick meets a floor that isn't flat, a small floor molding closes the gap. Quarter round (Galaxy QRM, $62.40 per 8 feet) or a slimmer shoe molding run along the bottom of the board; our molding guide explains which to choose. If you are planning built-ins rather than a kitchen, our guide to building built-ins from stock cabinets shows where a furniture base makes stock boxes look custom.

How the Kick Board Is Fitted After the Cabinets Are Set

The board goes on last, after the cabinets are leveled, fastened together and to the wall, and usually after the countertop and the flooring. Fitted early, it gets scuffed by other trades or its joints open when cabinets shift. Whoever installs, the order is the same:

1. Finish the floor first. If tile or wood goes in after the cabinets, the board sits on the new floor; set before the floor, it ends up buried or short.
2. Start at the most visible end. Work from an exposed end or the center of an island so any short offcut ends up in an inside corner or against a wall.
3. Measure each face separately. Kicks are rarely exactly the box width once fillers are counted. Measure at floor level, not at the top of the kick.
4. Cut finished side out. Use a fine-tooth blade, cut with the good face toward the blade's entry so chips land on the back, and seal raw cut ends in the touch-up color.
5. Miter the outside corners. A butt joint shows the core. Inside corners can butt, since they sit deep in the shadow.
6. Scribe to the floor if needed. Over a dip, scribe the bottom of the board rather than shimming it, or let quarter round cover the gap.
7. Fasten it. A ¼″ skin goes on with construction adhesive and pin nails into the plywood kick. A ¾″ board can be pinned, glued or held with clips. On Illume, it snaps onto the clip-on brackets on the legs.

Leave one length removable wherever you might need to get under the cabinets later: at the sink base for leaks, and anywhere a water line, a heater or a cable runs under the boxes. Clips or a couple of screws make that easy; a glued skin comes off in pieces. The full install sequence is in our guide to installing kitchen cabinets yourself.

End Panels, Islands and Peninsulas

Most trim problems at the floor happen where a run stops in the open. The cabinet's side has a recess cut into it, and whatever covers that side has to deal with it. There are three clean ways:

• Cap the end. Run the kick board to the end of the face and close the exposed end with the matching solid-wood cap (TKC, $7.80, or TKC-3/4 for the thick board at $10.40). Fabuwood says the cap is cut on site and is meant to match finished side panels.
• Return the kick around the side. Miter the board at the corner and run it back along the side to the wall. It's the cleanest look on an island end or a peninsula.
• Notch the end panel. A full-height decorative end panel (Galaxy's BEP base end panel is 24″ × 34½″, $149.50) or a ¼″ finished end skin covers the side down to the floor. Fabuwood's note on its end skins for framed lines is that the toe-kick cut-out is "routed out on site," and a full panel is notched the same way so the kick board dies into it.

Base fillers changed in 2024: Fabuwood's spec book says base fillers no longer come with a recessed notch, so a filler at the end of a run is flat to the floor. If that filler is visible, either notch it on site to continue the recess line or let the kick board run past it. Our guide to end panels, scribe molding and fillers and our skin panels and gables explainer cover the panel choices themselves.

Islands. An island shows on four sides, so decide each side's base before you order: a recess on the working side, and on the seating side a recess gives feet somewhere to go, while a furniture base looks good but gets kicked. Fabuwood can recess a cabinet's kick on its left, right or back (RECESS-TK, $149.50), which is how an island cabinet gets a recess on its exposed sides as well as its front. A peninsula built with the PEN-CABINET modification ($295.75) comes with the standard recessed kick on the peninsula side. Island sizing and clearances are in our island cabinet sizes guide.

Dishwashers, Ranges and Refrigerators

Appliances bring their own base trim, so the cabinet kick stops at every appliance opening. The dishwasher has its own kick plate, supplied with the machine and adjusted to its leveling legs; trying to run the cabinet kick across it blocks the service panel. Line up the cabinet boards on either side with the dishwasher plate's height and depth as closely as its adjustment allows. A freestanding or slide-in range sits on its own feet with its own drawer or trim panel, and a refrigerator stands in an open bay with no kick at all.

The detail people forget is the cabinet beside the appliance. If a dishwasher or range end panel runs to the floor, notch it or cap the kick against it so the recess doesn't end in a raw edge. And keep the board next to the dishwasher removable: if the machine ever leaks, that's where you look first.

Drawers in the Toe Space

The 4½-inch space under a base cabinet is dead space in most kitchens, and a drawer built into the plinth turns it into flat storage for sheet pans, cutting boards, placemats or a step stool. Fabuwood builds one into a base cabinet at the factory with its TK DRAWER modification: $318.50 in Galaxy's standard finishes, $380.25 in Natural Oak. In the frameless Illume line, the drawer front is 4⅛ inches tall, sized to take a top-mounted edge pull.

Before you order, check three things. The cabinet above needs a full-width, uninterrupted bottom, so sink bases with plumbing coming through the floor and cabinets on top of a heating duct are out. Opening needs to be hands-free or a low pull, since you can't reach down to a knob at floor level: a toe-push latch, an edge pull, or a push-to-open runner like the ones in our push-to-open cabinets guide. And the drawer replaces the kick board on that cabinet, so make your board count one face shorter. European hardware makers sell plinth drawers too; Blum's SPACE STEP turns the plinth into a pull-out that also works as a step and locks in place under load. Check Blum's plinth-height requirements against your 4½-inch kick before planning on one.

Heaters, Vents and Lighting at Floor Level

We don't sell these, but each needs an opening in the kick and often power or ducting, so plan it before the boards are cut.

Kick-space heaters. When a radiator or baseboard heater has to go to make room for cabinets, a kick-space heater is the usual replacement. Beacon Morris describes its Twin-Flo III kickspace heaters as a space-saving alternative to hot-water baseboard for kitchens and bathrooms: they run off the existing boiler or water heater, need a 115V electrical connection and ½-inch piping, and come in three sizes. Whatever unit you choose, the heater maker's clearances and the electrician's circuit decide where it goes, and the kick board is cut around its grille.

HVAC registers. If a floor register ends up under a cabinet, the duct is usually rerouted to a register in the kick face. Have the duct boot carried all the way to the face of the kick so air comes out into the room rather than filling the space under the box. The board gets a rectangular cut-out for the grille, which is easier to make in a ¾″ board than in a ¼″ skin.

Kick lighting. A low-voltage LED strip mounted under the cabinet bottom, behind the kick face, washes the floor with light and makes a good night light. Use a strip and driver rated for the location (near a sink means damp), put the driver somewhere you can reach without pulling the boards off, and aim the strip down so the diodes don't show as dots on a shiny floor. Our under-cabinet lighting guide covers drivers and color temperature.

Accessible Kitchens and the 9-Inch Toe Space

The 2010 ADA Standards, which govern public and commercial facilities (in a private home they are a design guide, not a requirement), treat the space from the floor up to 9 inches under an element as toe clearance (section 306.2.1). Where toe clearance is required as part of a clear floor space, such as a forward approach to an accessible sink or work surface, it has to reach at least 17 inches under the element (306.2.3), and section 306.2.4 doesn't count anything more than 6 inches beyond the knee clearance. That's a requirement for open space under a counter, not for a taller kick on every cabinet: ordinary bases elsewhere in an accessible kitchen can keep the standard recess. Shortening the kick with CUT-TK is one way to bring a counter down toward the ADA's 34-inch maximum for work surfaces (section 902.3). The full set of heights and reach ranges is in our ADA kitchen cabinets guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the recess at the bottom of a kitchen cabinet called?

It's the toe kick (our glossary entry has the short definition): the recessed strip at the bottom of a base or tall cabinet that gives your feet room so you can stand close to the counter. The recess is part of the cabinet; the finished board on its face is a separate trim piece in the cabinet's finish.

How tall is the kick space under a base cabinet?

4½ inches on the Fabuwood, US Cabinet Depot, KCD and J&K lines we sell, and it's included in the 34½-inch base height. Custom shops sometimes build 3½ to 4 inches.

How deep is the recess under a base cabinet?

About 3 inches from the door face. J&K's spec drawing shows 2½ inches behind the face frame, roughly 3¼ inches once the ¾-inch door is counted; most other spec books don't print it. If you're matching existing cabinets, measure from the kick to the door face at the floor.

Do kitchen cabinets need a kick at all?

Working cabinets should have one; without it you lean into the counter. Flush bases, furniture bases and wall-hung boxes skip it for looks, and they suit islands, vanities and built-ins better than a sink or range run.

Is the kick board the same as baseboard?

No. Room baseboard stops at the cabinets. A kick board is a flat strip set back in the recess, and cabinet base board molding is a taller, profiled board used at the face of a flush or furniture-style base.

Do base cabinets come with the finished kick board?

Usually not. Fabuwood Allure ships an unfinished plywood kick on the cabinet, and the finished TK8 or TK8-3/4 is ordered by the 8-foot length. Frameless Illume ships with legs and clip brackets, and the board is ordered separately.

Can you put a drawer under a base cabinet?

Yes, if the cabinet's bottom is clear. Fabuwood builds kick drawers at the factory ($318.50 in Galaxy). Sink bases and cabinets over a duct or heater aren't candidates.

Can you remove the kick from existing cabinets?

The finished board, yes: a pinned or clipped board pries off and can be replaced, though a glued skin usually comes off in pieces. The plywood kick behind it is part of the cabinet's base, so cutting it out of installed cabinets means supporting the boxes another way, which is a carpentry job. On new Fabuwood cabinets, the CUT-TK modification does it at the factory.

Should the kick board go on before or after flooring?

After. Set it once the floor, countertop and appliances are in, so it sits on the finished floor and doesn't get scuffed during the rest of the job.

Get the Kick, Panels and Trim on One Quote

Most trim mistakes at the floor are counting mistakes: one stick short, or no cap for the end by the walkway. Send us your layout and our free 3D design service gets you a designer's reply within one business day and renderings with an itemized quote, trim included, within 24–48 hours. Check codes and sizes in the Fabuwood Allure spec book, the Illume spec book or the US Cabinet Depot Shaker spec book, browse kick boards matched to your finish, and order a door sample to see the finish the boards will match.

We design, quote and ship cabinets and trim; installation is done by your contractor or by you. Questions? Reach us through the contact page or call 609-900-3358. Contractors fitting out several kitchens can ask about Captivating Pro.

Sources: Fabuwood Allure spec book V.01.20.25 (construction specifications pp. IV–V; moldings p. 67; cut modifications and customizations pp. 93–94; vanity platforms); Fabuwood Illume spec book V.01.21.25 (construction specifications pp. IV–V); our Fabuwood Galaxy, Natural Oak, Illume Catalina and Ovela Catalina price guides (October 2026); US Cabinet Depot Specification Manual V7 (framed panels, fillers and mouldings) and our USCD Shaker White price guide (October 2026); KCD and J&K Cabinetry spec books (molding and trim pages; J&K cabinet dimensions page); Fabuwood's Ovela launch announcement (Business Wire, November 24, 2025); 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design, sections 306.2 and 902.3 (U.S. Access Board); Beacon Morris Twin-Flo III kickspace heater product page; Blum SPACE STEP product page. Prices are our displayed prices at the time of writing and change with the price list.