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RicodJour RicodJour is offline
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Default wall cabinet coming off

On May 28, 3:38 pm, wrote:

I will greatly appreciate if anyone can guide me in right direction on
this. Our kitchen wall cabinet is coming off of the wall from the top
side. Not only this, the outer frame is sliding out of the top and
shelves. The top and she;ves seem to sit (and run) in groves in the
inside of the outer frame. As you can see I am not good at explaining
it in words and woodworking terminologies, therefore here are the
pictures

http://tinyurl.com/2snsrm

I will hate to have it taken off and get it reinstalled. Rather, I
will prefer to prevent this situation from getting worse.

Please let me know if you have further questions, I will try my best
to explain.

Thanks in advance.


Your cabinet is dead. Through extraordinary measures you could put it
back together to make it look like a repaired cabinet, but there are
enough things wrong with it that it would probably be easier, possibly
cheaper or at least a wash, to replace it. From the sticker and
general look of it, it's a Mills Pride or equivalent big box store
brand, so you might luck out and buy an exact replacement for $100.

If you're dead set on repairing it, taking it down and redoing it is
usually pretty straightforward. Wall cabinets are usually held up
with just a few screws - few being four or six or so. Just back them
out and have someone hold up the cabinet when you're removing the last
couple. Use glue, screws and don't worry too much about exposed
fasteners on the sides. There are cosmetic buttons and stickers that
are made to cover. Big box stores have them. That thin back does a
lot of work and there should be plenty of tacks holding it - every few
inches. The shelf load is on the sides, so the connection of the
sides to the top and particularly to the hanging rail (the horizontal
strip along the top of the back of the cabinet) is critical. Some
polyurethane glue and some square drive trim head screws should do the
trick. If you're willing to give up the adjustability you could nail
through the back and into the shelves, though that's probably not
necessary if you do a good enough job repairing the case. The face
frame, same thing, glue and some finish nails covered with some
colored repair wax.

The fifth picture from your link shows a drywall screw through the
face frame above the hinge. That's one of the screws you'll have to
remove to take the cabinet down. Careful - they tend to snap if your
over-torque them. I'm a bit confused about what's going on. That
drywall screw should have prevented the cabinet from moving down and
forward so much. What happened to the cabinet to the left of the one
you photographed?

R