Home Improvement

It's not that bad, glue and screw. Remove the inner board from the drawer front and reattach it to the drawer first. You might have to clean up the MDF a bit. Use filler if you have to, maybe, but don't use nails. Then reattach the drawer front - again with screws. It might not look perfect, but it'll probably look fine when the drawer is closed. Consider wood block fillets at the interior corners (sacrificing a bit of space).

Alternatively you could rebuild the drawer frame, using the same drawer front so it matches.

First: get yourself a real knife block. Tossing all your knives loose into a drawer is ruining the edges, and keeps them duller than dirt. A dull knife is dangerous.

Second: I wouldn't bother trying to fix that. The particle board looks like humidity has done a number on it, and it's falling apart. I would suggest getting a new drawer made out of 1/2" plywood (1/4" bottom) and box joints. It's pretty easy to do if you have a table saw, but if you're asking here, I'm going to assume you don't.

Another thought. Try the warranty.

https://www.merillat.com/customer-support/warranty-info.html

Edit: Hmm. Says not transferrable. But I suppose it doesn't hurt to try

Looks like there was glue on there before so you can try sanding and re glueing it or glue it and nail or screw it back in

I don't know if growing out your big toe is possible at this age. Have you tried watering it, and planting it firmly in some soil?

It’s hopeless, just burn your house down

Liberal application of wood glue to all mating surfaces. Then clamp in place and let cure.

The cured wood glue will be stronger than the particle board the drawer is made from.

Regardless of what you do to fix the drawer, consider that its the weight of what you've got in the drawer that caused the failure. Consider either reinforcing the underside, and or waxing or lubing whatever the roller or mounting hardware is. The heavy weight causing drag is ultimately why this failed (along with it just being cheap as shit particle board).

When I've had this issue in the past, I've gone ahead and replaced and reinforced the whole thing with 1/4th inch plywood. You can run two dados up the face board and then run the plywood into those, then pin nail and glue.

I had the same thing happen the chipboard just gave way because it could not hold up to the weight of the flatware and eventually just crumbled and pulled off. I fixed it by re making the the sides back and front out of a piece of trex decking I has left over and just cut it to the same size with the same rabbits, etc then assembled it with brad nails and gorilla glue. I reused the bottom as it was still in good shape.

Also, what is that on your counter, ice breaker? Motorcycle peg?

I'm more interested as to why you have a cottered crank from a bicycle on your counter. It looks like it has been cusomized into a tool with a little blacksmith work. What's it do?

Take off the drawer handle (the two screws), this will release the wood drawer front from the drawer face plate.

Once you have this wood you can fix it back to your drawer with a L- bracket. If the wood is broken too much on the side, you can replace this part with a piece equal in size and depth.

Like others suggested, pull the nails out and then add your new drawer front, nail it back in (or use screws, pre-drilling your screw holes). Then put your face plate back on.

Pull the drawer completely out so it is free from the cabinet and empty it. Cut/pull the exposed staples. Clean it up. Dry fit it so it goes back together well and seats as flush as it used to. Titebond wood glue all connecting surfaces, both sides. Fit the drawer front back on the drawer body and set it either front face down on a table with a book or three on the top, or drawer back side down with books/weight on the top/drawer face. Let glue cure for 24 hours. That should honestly be enough unless it gets a lot of abuse. If that's the case, some wood corner/shoe moulding glued into the inside left and right corners afterward should keep it intact. Wood glue is strong AF. Stronger than the wood that drawer is made from.

You'd be better off replacing that particle board piece stuck to the face with a real piece of wood, and securing that to the drawer with long screws, then screwing the gray face plate to the new drawer front.

My first instinct is to remove the existing screws and staples and add two L brackets to each side.

With no offense intended (because the fault is on the cabinet maker), that's one of the flimsiest looking designs I've seen. In most cases, the face is just a plate attached to the cabinet itself.

As for fixing it, it looks like it was just stapled through the sides. I'd pull the staples and clean up the bits where the face ripped off. Maybe try filling in those parts of the face plate with some wood fill or bondo. Then you can run some glue along the cabinet and glue the face back on. Maybe run some L-brackets and nails/screws into it, too, if it still feels flimsy.

Gorilla glue maybe?

Some angled steel brackets and a few screws, for strength, or epoxy glue, for looks