Will a reuse center take my cabinets?

If they are solid wood or plywood, structurally sound, and removed intact as a run, often yes. Particleboard, water damage or demolition rules it out.

When do I need to decide?

Before demolition day. Once a contractor has pried a run off the wall, the donation option no longer exists.

Do you take granite countertops?

Yes. They are heavy rather than difficult, and the weight is factored into the quote.

How much space does a kitchen of cabinets take?

Typically a third to a half of a truck. More if they have been demolished rather than removed intact.

Renovation guide · 5 min read

How to Dispose of Old Kitchen Cabinets

This decision has to be made before the demolition, not after it. A solid wood run removed carefully has somewhere to go. The same run pried off the wall in pieces does not.

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Torn-out kitchen cabinets, packaging and offcuts covering the floor of a kitchen mid-renovation

Two minutes of assessment saves the whole question

Open a door and look at the edge. If the carcass is plywood or solid timber and the doors are solid wood, the run has a donation route. If it is particleboard with a laminate or thermofoil face, it does not, regardless of condition.

Then check for water damage under the sink, which is where it always is. Swollen particleboard around a sink base rules out the whole run for most receiving organizations, because they will not take a partial kitchen.

If the answer is yes on both counts, tell the contractor to unscrew rather than pry, before demolition day.

Which route your cabinets qualify for

What you have	Route
Solid wood or plywood, sound, removed intact	Building reuse center. Often collected, sometimes tax-deductible.
Solid wood but water-damaged at the sink	Usually declined as a run. Disposal.
Particleboard with laminate or thermofoil	No donation market at all. Disposal.
Good condition but an unusual configuration	Worth asking. Some centers take partial runs, most prefer complete ones.
Already demolished	Disposal. The decision has been made.
Countertop, any material	Disposal in almost all cases. Stone occasionally has a fabricator market.

If they are going in a truck

Cabinets are bulky rather than heavy — mostly air in boxes — so they take more truck space than their weight suggests. A full kitchen run is usually a third to a half of a load on its own.

They also load far more efficiently intact than demolished. A run of boxes stacks; a pile of broken particleboard, door fronts and countertop fragments does not.

Which means that even where donation is off the table, having them unscrewed rather than smashed is worth doing.

Cabinet removal