When something goes wrong: doors that will not line up, drawers hitting handles, gaps at the wall, sagging shelves and cabinets that are out of level.
Work the cheap causes first, because they are almost always it. 1. Loose hinge screws. Somewhere around two thirds of doors that will not stay shut are just this; snug them by hand. 2. A screw that spins forever means the hole is stripped — fix the hole, not the screw. 3. Adjustment. If the screws are tight and it still creeps open, the door is sitting too far off the box for the soft-close or the hinge spring to grab; bring it in on the depth screw. 4. A dead hinge. Old spring hinges do lose their snap; a like-for-like replacement is a two-minute job. A genuinely warped door or a swollen box is real, but rare — check it last, not first.
Full fix-it guide — Troubleshooting →Whatever you do, do not go up a screw size — a fatter screw just crushes more board and you get one more turn before it fails again. Small hole: push in two or three glue-dipped toothpicks or a matchstick, snap them flush, and drive the original screw straight back in while the glue is still wet. Bigger hole: pack it with epoxy wood filler, or glue in a hardwood dowel, let it cure fully, then drill a fresh pilot. Prevention is the same lesson from the other end: hinge and slide screws go in snug by hand — an impact driver is how the hole got stripped.
Full fix-it guide — Troubleshooting →Match the repair to the damage. A surface scratch in a painted or laminate door usually disappears under a touch-up marker or the manufacturer’s touch-up paint, applied with a fine brush in thin coats and left proud, then levelled once dry. A chip on an edge wants filling first — a wax fill stick for something shallow, coloured epoxy filler for anything deeper — then colour on top. On thermofoil, a lifted edge is heat damage, not wear: it will not glue back reliably and the honest fix is a new door. Order a touch-up kit with the kitchen; matching a colour two years later is much harder.
Full fix-it guide — Troubleshooting →Because the wall is not straight. Nobody’s is — a bow of ¼″ over eight feet is completely normal, and that gap is not a mistake, it is precisely what fillers and scribes exist for. Do it in this order: shim behind the cabinet at the stud lines so the box stays square when you tighten the screw, then close what is left with a scribed filler or scribe molding, cut to follow the wall’s actual contour with a compass. What you must never do is drive the screws hard to pull the cabinet back against the wall — that racks the box, and every door above it goes crooked.
Full fix-it guide — Troubleshooting →Before the countertop goes on: yes, easily. Back the screws out of the wall and out of the neighbouring cabinet, re-set the adjustable feet, re-clamp the fronts flush and screw it all back. After a stone top is bonded down: you are not moving the box, so you fix what the eye actually reads — re-adjust the doors so the gaps run straight, add scribe molding where the cabinet meets the wall, and re-scribe the toe kick along the floor. Both answers are the argument for the same habit: check level after every single box, not at the end of the run.
Full fix-it guide — Troubleshooting →A faint smell from new composite panels is normal and fades. Ventilate hard for the first weeks: open the doors and drawers, run the range hood and cross-ventilate the room, and keep indoor humidity around 30–50%, since emissions rise with heat and damp. Most of it dissipates within weeks rather than months. If the smell is strong or persistent, or anyone in the house is sensitive, ask for the panel compliance documentation — ours are EPA Title VI compliant.
Read it in full →It depends how far it went. Dry it out completely first — empty the cabinet, run a fan into it for a couple of days, and fix the leak. If the board has only lifted at an edge, it can often be sanded flat, sealed and covered with a mat and it will hold. If the swelling has crumbled the board or reached the screws holding the cabinet together, that panel is finished, and replacing the one cabinet is the honest fix.
Every common problem — Fix it →Usually, yes. Take everything off and flip the shelf over; unloaded and reversed, a mild bow straightens back over weeks. Then change what caused it: move heavy items towards the ends where the pins support them, split the load over an extra shelf, or stiffen the shelf by gluing and pinning a slim batten along its front edge.
Every common problem — Fix it →Do not force the drawer box. The front is fixed to the box with adjustable brackets, so loosen those a turn, slide the front until its gaps match its neighbours, and re-tighten. Work one drawer at a time from the bottom of the stack up, and sight along the whole run rather than judging one front on its own.
Every common problem — Fix it →That is the side-to-side adjustment, and the rule is that it is easier to move one door than two. Pick the door with the bigger gap on its far side and wind it away from its neighbour a quarter-turn at a time. If the rub is only at the top or bottom, the door is not square to the box — fix that first with the height and depth screws, then even the gap.
Read it in full →Take it seriously and empty it now. It means the fixing is not in solid framing, or the screws went through the thin back panel instead of the ¾″ rails. Support the cabinet, back the screws out, and re-fix through the rails into a stud with washer-head screws long enough to bite at least an inch of wood. If you cannot find framing at that point, the cabinet has to move or the wall needs blocking added.
Read it in full →On a door you have not fitted yet, the cheapest fix is a replacement front, because a filled hole in a laminate face never quite disappears. If replacing is not an option, fill it with colour-matched epoxy filler, level it and touch it in — then hide it deliberately by choosing a larger backplate or a longer pull that covers the spot. And make a jig before you drill the next one.
Every common problem — Fix it →The error almost always started at the corner cabinet, which is the one piece whose position you cannot adjust later, and it travelled down the run. If the cabinets are not yet fixed, go back to the corner, square it to the reference line and re-set from there. If they are fixed, take the error out at the far end where a filler or an end panel can absorb it — that is exactly why the plan leaves margin there.
Read it in full →Two usual causes. The clips are not aligned — the catch on the back of the board has to line up with the hardware on the cabinet feet, so check the heights match before you push. Or the board is cut a shade too long and is bowing rather than seating; take a whisker off and it will click home. On an uneven floor, scribe the bottom edge instead of forcing it down.
Every common problem — Fix it →Check three things in order. The door is closing from too far out — soft-close only engages in the last stretch, so a door adjusted out on its depth screw never reaches the damper. The damper is jammed from a slam, in which case pull it back out by hand. Or the hinge itself is worn, which is a two-minute like-for-like swap with a screwdriver.
Every common problem — Fix it →Probably not: you installed level, and the ceiling is not. That is the normal outcome and it is why trim exists. Scribe a flat filler board or crown to follow the ceiling so the eye reads one straight line, and leave the cabinets where they are. Chasing a sloping ceiling with the cabinets themselves throws every door out instead.
Every common problem — Fix it →That means the cabinets under it are not in one plane — usually one box that never came up to the reference line, or a run that was pulled into a hollow in the wall. If the top is not yet fixed down, correct the cabinet with its feet or a shim and re-check with a long straightedge across the whole run. Never pack a rocking top with silicone alone; fix what is under it.
Every common problem — Fix it →A real and very common clash, especially with long bar pulls beside an appliance. The fixes, cheapest first: fit a shorter or a knob-style handle on that one cabinet, move the pull to the far side of the door, or add a narrow filler between the dishwasher and the cabinet so the door clears. Check it on your plan before you order — the drawing shows this if you look for it.
Read it in full →Usually yes, and it is one of the easier mistakes to undo. On a single door the hinge cups are bored on one edge, so the door has to be turned — which works when the door is symmetrical top to bottom, and does not when it has a grain direction or a shaped detail. Move the mounting plates to the other side panel and re-hang. If the door cannot be turned, it is a replacement front rather than a whole cabinet.
Every common problem — Fix it →