Something has gone wrong, or it is about to. That is normal — every kitchen, DIY or trade-installed, throws up two or three of these. What separates a good result from a frustrating one is knowing the order to try the fixes in, because the cheap causes are almost always the real ones and the expensive theory is almost always wrong.
The door won’t stay closed · The screw just spins · Drawers & soft-close · Gaps & level · Chips, scratches & swelling · It won’t fit · When to stop and call someone
What they search at midnight “cabinet door won’t stay closed / uneven cabinet door gaps” — four causes, and the first one is free.
Work them in this order, because that is the order of how often they are actually it:
A genuinely warped door or a box swollen with moisture does happen — but it is the last thing to suspect, not the first. If the four checks above come up clean, sight along the closed door: a warped door will show light at one corner only.
When the reveals between doors run wide at one end and tight at the other, resist the urge to chase them door by door. Square each door to its own box first, then walk the run evening the gaps between doors — and remember it is always easier to move one door than two. If no amount of adjusting straightens the line, the problem is not the doors: a cabinet is out of level, and that is a different fix.
What they search at midnight “stripped screw hole particleboard cabinet” — whatever you do, don’t reach for a fatter screw.
A stripped hole in particleboard is the single most common repair in a kitchen, and there is one instinct to suppress: do not go up a screw size. A thicker screw crushes more of the board it is supposed to grip, and buys you one more turn before it fails again, in a bigger hole.
Stop loading it and check the fixing before anything else. A loaded wall cabinet puts roughly 30–50 lb per linear foot on its fixings: screwed into studs it carries that with room to spare, screwed into drywall alone it carries almost nothing. Take the doors and the contents off, re-drill into the actual studs with #10 × 2½–3″ washer-head cabinet screws, two per stud through the mounting rails — and where a stud genuinely does not exist, give that box a real fixing such as blocking or a backer board rather than toggles alone; the no-stud page has every option. A sagging wall cabinet is not a cosmetic problem.
Three suspects, and you can test all three in a minute. Debris in the runner — wipe the slides clean, front to back. A jammed damper — if the drawer was slammed or dropped, the little hydraulic piston can stick compressed and the drawer stops an inch out; pull it back out by hand to release it. Alignment — undermount runners are screwed through oval holes for exactly this reason: loosen them, square the drawer, re-tighten.
If the drawer front tilts down as it comes out, the box is not sitting fully on the runners — pull it right out and re-seat it until both front clips click. A drawer that binds only when it is full is telling you something else: check that the cabinet is still level and square, because a racked box narrows the opening at the top.
The classic corner clash, and it has three fixes in order of cost: swap the offending front to a knob or a low-profile pull; move the pull further from the corner (a vertical pull on a drawer front is perfectly normal); or fit a corner filler — at least 2″ beside drawers, 1½″ beside a door, 3″ beside a dishwasher — so the drawer starts clear of the return. On a drawing this costs nothing — which is exactly why corner fillers exist, and why every inside corner is worth checking while you are still planning.
What they search at midnight “gap between cabinet and wall” — the wall is bent. Every wall is bent.
A bow of ¼″ over eight feet is completely ordinary, and the gap it leaves is not a mistake — it is the whole reason fillers and scribes exist. Close it in this order: shim behind the cabinet at the stud lines so the box stays square when the screw comes tight, then cut a filler or scribe molding to the wall’s actual contour with a compass. The one thing 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 — you will spend an hour chasing hinge adjustments for a problem that is not in the hinges.
If a box is genuinely out of level and it is already installed, what you can do depends on one thing: whether the countertop is on.
Both answers argue for the same habit, and it is the single most useful one on install day: check level after every single box, not at the end of the run.
Match the repair to the damage and to the door, and be honest about which you have.
Factory laminates are very consistent from one order to the next, so the thing to keep is the colour code on your order: that is what a replacement door is made to. If a colour is ever discontinued, ask your sales rep. Painted Shaker doors are the ones that need a touch-up pen — ask your rep for the one in your colour while the kitchen is going in, because you will want it about a week after everything is finished.
The dishwasher will not go in. A standard opening is 24″ wide × 24″ deep × 34½″ high, and height is usually the culprit. Wind the machine’s own levelling feet all the way down; check whether new flooring laid over old, or a strip fixed across the top of the opening, quietly ate your clearance; and pull the top panel off if it has one, which is worth about ½″. If the opening is too narrow, note that a frameless box gives you nothing to shave — so the fix is at the cabinetry: re-cut the filler, or shift the neighbouring cabinet.
There is an outlet behind the cabinet. It has to be moved, and by an electrician — an electrical box may not be enclosed and made inaccessible. This is not a corner to improvise in.
There is a floor register under the run. Do not simply leave it blowing into the void under the box: you get dust, condensation, and a warm cupboard. Duct it out to a toe-kick grille with a toe-kick duct kit, or have the register relocated before the cabinets land.
All three are plan-stage decisions that turn into lost days when they are discovered on install day. Ten minutes with the plan and a flashlight before you order is the cheapest insurance in the whole project.
Almost everything on this page is a screwdriver job. These are not, and the cost of getting them wrong is not measured in cabinets:
Handing those five over is not a failure of DIY nerve. It is the same call the trade makes, for the same reason.
The sections above are the quick fix. These twelve come up often enough, and go wrong in enough different ways, that each has a full page: how to tell which version of the problem you have, then the fixes from cheapest to most drastic, in the order they happen.
Nearly always one of four things, in this order: loose hinge screws (roughly two thirds of cases), a stripped screw hole if a screw spins without gripping, a depth adjustment that leaves the door too far off the box for the soft-close or spring to grab, or a worn-out spring hinge that needs replacing. A warped door is real but uncommon — check it last.
Never go up a screw size — a thicker screw crushes more board and buys you one more turn. Small hole: two or three glue-dipped toothpicks pushed in, snapped flush, and the original screw driven straight back while the glue is wet. Larger hole: epoxy wood filler or a glued hardwood dowel, cured fully, then a fresh pilot hole.
Because the wall is not straight — ¼″ of bow over eight feet is completely normal. Shim behind the cabinet at the stud lines so the box stays square when you tighten, then close what is left with a scribed filler or scribe molding. Never drive the screws hard to pull the cabinet back to the wall: that racks the box and every door above it goes crooked.
Before the countertop goes on: yes, and quickly. Back out the wall screws and the screws to the neighbouring cabinet, reset the adjustable feet, re-clamp the fronts flush and refasten. After a stone top is bonded down: the box is staying where it is, so correct what the eye reads — re-adjust the doors so the gaps run straight, add scribe molding at the wall, and re-scribe the toe kick.
The classic corner clash. Cheapest fix first: swap that front to a knob or a low-profile pull. Next: move the pull further from the corner — a vertical pull on a drawer front is perfectly normal. Last: fit a corner filler — at least 2″ beside drawers, 1½″ beside a door, 3″ beside a dishwasher — so the drawer starts clear of the return. On a drawing it costs nothing, which is exactly why corner fillers exist.
Three suspects. Debris in the runner — wipe the slides clean. A jammed damper — if the drawer was slammed or dropped, the little hydraulic piston can stick compressed; pull it back out by hand to release it. Or alignment — the runners have oval screw holes, so loosen them, square the drawer, and re-tighten.
Match the repair to the door. On a painted (Shaker) door, a scratch or a small chip takes a touch-up pen in the door’s colour — Flip has them for its Shaker doors, so ask your sales rep — in thin coats, levelled once dry. Laminate — melamine and PET gloss doors, and the box edges — has no touch-up paint: fill a shallow chip with a wax fill stick in the nearest colour, sold at hardware stores such as Home Depot, and use coloured epoxy filler for anything deeper. On thermofoil, a lifted edge is heat damage; it will not glue back reliably and the honest answer is a replacement door.
A standard opening is 24″ × 24″ × 34½″, and height is usually the problem. Wind the machine’s own levelling feet all the way down, check whether new flooring or a strip fixed across the top of the opening ate the clearance, and remove the top panel if it has one. Too narrow is a cabinetry fix, not an appliance one — a frameless box has nothing to shave, so re-cut the filler or shift the neighbour.
Two different problems. An outlet behind a base cabinet has to be moved by an electrician — boxes may not be enclosed and made inaccessible. A floor register must not be left blowing into the void under a cabinet: duct it out to a toe-kick grille, or relocate the register before the cabinets land. Both are plan-stage calls; found on install day, each costs you the day.
Inspect before you sign, and tell your Flip Kitchen sales rep about anything you find. Damage done in transit — a crushed carton, a split corner — is a claim with the carrier you booked and is not covered by Flip, so note it on the carrier’s delivery receipt and photograph the pallet, the cartons and the parts from several angles before the driver leaves. A missing part or a quality problem — a faulty panel, a part machined wrong — is sorted through your rep, and quality problems are replaced: the shipping on the replacement is yours, though your rep can prepare the label for you. Either way, do not assemble or install a damaged cabinet until it is sorted out, so it can be seen as it arrived. The screws that join cabinets and fix them to the wall were never in the box, so those are not missing — they are yours to buy.
Most of the problems on this page start as a decision made three weeks earlier — a corner without a filler, an outlet nobody noted, a run that was never going to be level. Draw the kitchen first and they never happen.
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