White Cabinet Drawers

Ms. White called me and was somewhat upset that one or two of her cabinet drawers were coming apart on her relatively new kitchen cabinets.

She asked me how much it would cost to fix them while we were on the phone, but I told her that I had to go over and see exactly what she was talking about before I can even begin to figure a price for her. It usually sounds worse than it really is, but this time it was worse.

My son and I jumped into the truck and headed over to see what was going on with the drawers and possibly, maybe fix them right then and there.

Her story was that she paid about $3000.00 for the set and that the cabinet carpenters were assembling them on site in her garage.




The cabinets looked to be of very good quality, for not a lick of particle board was in sight.

One drawer already had completely come apart and was on her kitchen table while several others, that were still being used, showed signs of coming apart; wobbling and shifting around on their glides.

Even though three of the nine drawers were obviously in bad shape, I suggested to her that all of them should be reworked for the others were due to come apart real soon just like the first three did. She agreed and emptied all the drawers.










I estimated that this would be about a two hour job and I would treat this as a Handyman type call and do it by the hour. She agreed.

The drawers were held together by dovetails that fingered together at the corners with the face screwed on.

One could plainly see that the installers just snapped the drawers together and stuck it in it's cabinet drawer slot without one drop of glue and zero fasteners.









 
I completely broke each drawer down one by one there on her kitchen floor, unscrewing the handle, facing, and the glides.

The rest of the drawer just fell to pieces.

Some of the dovetails showed minor wear and tear as it has been in use while loose.











 
I took the back and one side piece and applied glue to the dove tails on both boards.

I joined the two mates and tapped it tight and flush with my trusty little trim hammer.

I then shot three 1-3/4" brads through the face of the end board into the side board's edge at the corners.

I repeated this process for the other side.











The bottom panel of the drawer slides in on a groove that's been routered into the inside of all the sides.

I went ahead and put a line of glue in the bottom groove on the end and dropped the drawer's bottom in.

Wood trash sometimes got in the way of the bottom panel from seating, requiring me to pull the panel back out to clear the groove.

A time or two I had to use my wood chisel and hammer to chisel out some dovetail trash that splintered off the already secured joints.



 












 
I added more glue to the dove tails on the top part (of course) and tacked it all together just as I had done on the bottom piece.

To align the drawer's finished face back up on the drawer's box, I pushed the handle's machine bolt through the original holes and screwed on the handle loosely.
 
Making sure that I had the face on good and square, I screwed in the wood screws that held the face on. I then tightened all the bolts and screws.

I didn't glue the drawer face onto the drawer because just maybe one day in the not so far distant future, just maybe, somebody might want to change the face out to a different style cabinet face. So why make it hard on them?












These cabinet boxes appeared to be of very good quality, and I'm pretty sure that they would last a lifetime or two.

(The only reason I was able to get these action photos of me at work here was that my eleven year old son, James, was available to take these pictures. I think we found his calling! It looks like there's a future for him in action photography.)

I repeated this repair procedure to the remaining eight drawers.


















It only took about an hour and a half from start to finish for this task, so I did some other odd and end jobs for her to finish out what little time was left.

It was just a matter of adjusting some other cabinet doors in another room she had and fastening on some shoe guards on her dining room table chairs.

I believe she like the work I did, especially being that I was able to take care of it right away.