Kitchen help! New sink base because two cabinets are missing?

Question

Hello all,

We bought a property in as is condition. The kitchen cabinet sink base, was missing two drawers. The whole base is completely hallow, so I cannot anchor new drawer slides on the slide wall. Do i really need to buy a whole new sink base over two missing drawers?

Please see some pictures below and let me know your thoughts. It just seems so silly

Brian Pulaski · Answer

I understand every penny counts, but to repair and rebuild drawer boxes, you will probably be into it for $30-50. In your photo a new set up (minus counter) costs $135. Find a 10% coupon, buy the new one and reuse the existing sink, counter, pulls etc. The existing cabinet looks like it has a lot of water staining and could use replacement.

Steve Babiak · Answer

And whether you continue to use that old cabinet base or replace the entire cabinet base, you can see that there was lots of water staining in the bottom of that cabinet. So you might want to line the cabinet bottom with vinyl sheet flooring - you can probably get a remnant somewhere to fit. That can help to keep cabinet base from getting too much water damage.

Cheryl Butler · Answer

If you buy a new one you either have to match the uppers or paint everything the same color. I'd go on craigslist or OfferUp and find uppers and lowers that someone pulled out of their kitchen and was selling $100, or giving away for free.

Steve Babiak · Answer

There are three separate components involved in a cabinet drawer: tracks / slides, structural drawer box, and decorative front panel.

My guess is, in the photo with red lines and dimensions, that the piece of metal with red line across it and the 23" dimension is the drawer track that was used with the original drawer. Not sure, but that's my guess. If you could find out how to put a bracket on the back of a drawer box to catch onto that track, you might not need to get slides.

Otherwise I would go with bottom mount drawer tracks here. Mount piece of 1x6 onto the back wall just below the piece of wood that is part of existing cabinet frame. Attach new drawer slides to this. Since that old drawer apparently only had a single center mount slide, you could probably just use a single bottom mount slide per drawer, or just go with a pair per drawer.

Then you have to either build or find a drawer box as well as a decorative front panel to match with what you have on that existing cabinet.

Adam A. · Answer

Habitat Restore or other used building material source will have replacements on hand.  In a major city as you are, there should be plenty.

The drawers should be standard.  (Measure of course.)  Buy the entire cabinets and pull the glides out too.

Bob H. · Answer

I think drawer slides typically are attached to the front of the cabinet on the inside and to the back of the cabinet. You need to first build two boxes. Each box you build should have a front made of the same material as the back and sides. This front will support the decorative front you need to buy. Ideally, the front, back and sides of each box would have a slot near the lower edge to accommodate the edge of the thin bottom.

Get two decorative drawer fronts from the kitchen design department at Home Depot, Lowe's or some other place. Finish them, as well as you can, to match the cabinet. From the inside of each drawer box, screw through the front of the box and into the decorative drawer front, being careful not to go all the way through the decorative front.

If you are going to add knobs to the decorative front, do that before attaching the decorative front to the box. Countersink your knob screws into the decorative front or the box front so they don't interfere with mounting the decorative front to the box.

@Jim Adrian is right that those centered knobs look weird, but people probably could get used to them.

Jim Adrian · Answer

@Gabe Sirkin

Talk with a local cabinet shop.  They could give you the best options to fix this.  At the end of the day it may be less headache to replace such a little area.  It may cost more just to build the 2 drawers than replacing it all.  The door handles are in the wrong spot as well.  Typically they are in the upper corner of the doors and not the center. You are missing a shelf in the cabinet as well. You could reuse the countertop and sink.

Kitchen help! New sink base because two cabinets are missing?

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