How to Remove Kitchen Cabinets

If your old kitchen cabinets need more than a coat of paint, replacing them is easy, and if they’re still in good condition, you can donate them to charity. Learn how to remove kitchen cabinets in this HGTV video:

Above counter cabinets are fairly easy to remove. Take out everything from the inside of your cabinets, and make sure there’s nothing on top of them as well. Cabinets are attached in two places; they’re attached to one another using screws on the inside of the cabinet, and they’re also screwed into the stud walls on the top and bottom of the cabinet.

If you have under cabinet lighting, this will need to be detached before proceeding with the cabinet removal. Turn off the power to your under cabinet lighting at the circuit breaker box. Once you’re sure there’s no power running to your lighting, you’re ready to proceed. Your under cabinet lighting is probably screwed into the bottom of the cabinet. You’ll need to find these screws and remove them. Sometimes these screws are found inside the light itself. Remove the light cover and locate the screws. Make sure there is no power running to your under cabinet lighting by using a current finder. If the detector lights up, the wire is still hot, and you’ll need to locate the correct circuit breaker. Using your electric driver, remove the screws. Now your lighting is detached from the cabinets.

You’ll want to remove one cabinet at a time. If the cabinet is actually attached to the adjacent cabinet with screws, you’ll need to locate those screws on the inside of the cabinet and take them out. Once you’ve made sure that your cabinets are detached from one another, then you need to locate the screws on the top of the cabinet. They may be at the very top, or if your cabinets sit flush with the ceiling, those screws will be on the inside.

Have a friend hold the cabinets in place so that it doesn’t come off of the wall. Once the top screws are removed, the cabinets will be held to the wall only by the bottom screws. Locate the bottom screws on your cabinet; these are probably located on the underside, although they may be on the inside. You want to make sure that your cabinet isn’t going to fall and hurt you or damage something underneath it. Have a friend hold the cabinet in place while you remove the final screw from the bottom of the cabinet. Once the final screw is removed, your cabinet will come free. If you’ve removed all the side screws and top screws, it will come off the wall easily.