Galaxy Pistachio Green Corner Post Cabinets

Start with the arithmetic, because it explains everything else. A base cabinet box is 34½ inches tall including its toe kick. A standard countertop adds roughly an inch and a half, which brings the work surface to 36 inches off the floor. So the post is the height of the finished counter, not the height of the cabinet it sits against.

That leaves an inch and a half at the top that has to go somewhere, and there are only two places for it. Either the post runs up past the cabinet and the counter is cut around it, so the post’s top finishes flush with the worktop. Or the post is trimmed to sit under the counter, and the counter’s overhang runs over it the way it runs over every other cabinet. Which one is intended for this part is not published, so ask — and then tell the stone fabricator before they template, not after.

Neither is wrong. The notched version is more furniture-like and is the one people imagine when they see a corner post in a photo; the trimmed version is simpler, leaves the counter unbroken, and is the one an installer will default to if nobody says otherwise. The counter heights these numbers come from are set out in important kitchen dimensions.

The bottom joint is the one that gets forgotten. Base cabinets stand on a recessed toe kick so you can get your feet under the counter edge. At an outside corner, that recess has to turn the corner too, and a post fixed over the corner has to decide whether it goes down into the recess or stops above it.

• Post down to the floor, kick stopping against it. The post becomes a leg, the recessed kick runs along each face and dies into its sides. This is the cleaner look and the one that suits a post that also goes up to meet the counter. Where a run of kick ends in the open, a toe kick cap — GPG TKC at $7.80 or GPG TKC-3/4 at $10.40 for the thicker kick — finishes the cut end.
• Post stopping at the underside of the box, kick wrapping the corner below it. The post reads as trim applied to the cabinet, with the shadow line of the kick running unbroken underneath. Simpler to install, and it keeps the floor clear for cleaning.

Choose it with the top detail, because the two should agree: a post that meets the counter and the floor is a leg, a post that stops short at both ends is trim, and one of each looks undecided. The toe kick itself is GPG TK8 at $55.90 or GPG TK8-3/4 at $58.50 per eight-foot stick; an island with four open corners goes through more of it than most people expect. Every part at the base of the run is named in parts of a kitchen cabinet.

A corner post hides the line where two faces meet. It does nothing for the faces themselves, and at the end of an island or a peninsula at least one of those faces is a cabinet side that shipped unfinished because nobody knew it would be on show. The post goes on over finished sides; it does not replace them.

In this finish that means a base end skin, GPG SK BASE at $62.40, where the side only needs a finished surface, or a base end panel, GPG BEP at $149.50, where you want a thicker, door-style end that stands a little proud. A skin is the lighter, cheaper answer on a side nobody studies; the panel is the one to use where the corner faces the dining side of the room. Cabinet skin panels and gables explains the difference with photographs, and end panels, scribe moulding and fillers covers how they meet the wall.

Count the corner as three parts, then: two finished sides and the post. At the end of an island, that is $62.40 to $149.50 per side plus $312.00 for the post — a detail that looks like a single line on the quote but is really three.

The post is the decorative answer. The practical ones cost a fraction of it. An outside corner moulding, GPG OCM8, is $62.40 for an eight-foot stick; the heavier 1¼-inch profile, GPG OCM8-1 1/4″, is $78.00; a 3-by-36-inch overlay filler, GPG OLF336, is $84.50 and gives a flat vertical with a shadow each side. Each of those is between a fifth and just over a quarter of the post’s price, and a single eight-foot stick of moulding covers more than one base-height corner.

So save the post for the corner people actually look at — the island end facing the table, the peninsula that meets the living room — and give the corners behind the fridge or at the back of a galley the moulding. If the corner you are looking at is at upper or tall height rather than base, this part is the wrong size for it; the pilasters and full-height columns cover those heights, and a wall end cabinet finishes the end of an upper run with a cabinet rather than with trim.

An outside corner at hip height is where bags, trays, vacuum hoses and passing hips all make contact. Whatever sits on that corner will collect small dents and chips faster than any door, and that is part of the case for putting a separate part there at all: a post can be touched up, and in the worst case refitted, without disturbing the cabinets either side.

The colour matters here in one specific way. A white corner that picks up a small chip still reads as white from a step away. A mid-tone sage does not hide damage the same way — the mark reads as a change of tone on an edge the light is already catching from two directions. Order the touch-up kit in this finish, GPG TOUCH UP KIT at $62.40, with the cabinets, and use it early. Order the post in the same order as the cabinets too, so it comes out of the same finish run as the doors beside it; on a corner lit from two sides, a small difference in batch shows more readily than it would flat on a run.

Before any of that, look at the green itself on the corner of a door sample ($25.00): the edge of a sample is the closest thing you can hold to how this post will look where the light rakes across it. How to evaluate a sample explains what to look at.

Mark every outside corner on the plan at base height. For each one, decide post or moulding, then decide the top detail and the foot detail together, and tell the fabricator which corners need a notch. Add the finished sides, the toe kick and its caps, and one touch-up kit. Then check the count: an island with posts on all four corners is four posts, up to eight finished sides and a lot of toe kick.

The free 3D design service draws each corner in plan with its parts named, which is the fastest way to catch a missing skin. The full trim list is on the decorative accessories page, the finish on the collection page, and builders finishing several islands a year order through Captivating Pro.