How to Find Cheap or Free Kitchen Cabinets

It makes sense to look for the cheapest kitchen cabinets since new kitchen cabinets make up a huge part of any kitchen remodel budget. New kitchen cabinets cost anywhere from $2,000 to $24,000. Installing your own kitchen cabinets is one way to lower the cost. Another way is to look for cheap or free used cabinets from online sources like Facebook or from physical locations like salvage yards or kitchen design centers.

Buy Nothing Project

Your local Buy Nothing Project group is a hyper-local, neighborhood-specific initiative that, as the name says, requires that everything be listed for free. As a Benefit Corporation, Buy Nothing's charter mandates that it must provide a public good.

You may need to remove the cabinets from the house by yourself, so clarify this with the owner first. In most cases, the cabinets should have been removed from the kitchen and left in a holding area like a garage or back bedroom.

Facebook Marketplace

Facebook Marketplace items come at a monetary cost or at the cost of bartered items. Areas covered by Facebook Marketplace are not as granular as with Facebook Local Groups. But they are usually within the same city or metro area.

Facebook Marketplace and the Buy Nothing Project are unrelated, though both are hosted on Facebook. But sometimes owners who fail to sell items on Marketplace later list the items for free on their local Buy Nothing list.

Craigslist For Sale/Free

Your local Craigslist For Sale/Free or For Sale/Barter sections invariably will turn up kitchen cabinets.

Large remodeling materials are a common feature on Craigslist. Kitchen cabinets are sometimes double-listed on both Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace.

Habitat For Humanity ReStore

Habitat For Humanity's ReStores are a wonderful source for home-related items. At over 900 U.S. locations, ReStore sometimes offers kitchen cabinets.

ReStore volunteers often mark down prices incredibly low to keep items flowing. This is especially true with large items like kitchen cabinets that gobble up valuable floor space. Also, by shopping at ReStores, you help to support community Habitat For Humanity programs.

Architectural Salvage Yards

Architectural salvage yards are where pieces of houses go to find a new home—for profit. These are commercial operations. antique stores that handle large items.

Sinks, flooring, bathtubs, mirrors, wall paneling, and nearly every element of a home, including kitchen cabinets, can be found in architectural salvage yards.

Owners and workers tend to be savvy about the value of items and mark the prices accordingly. Be prepared to bargain.

New RTA (Ready to Assemble) Cabinets

RTA stands for ready to assemble, a category of kitchen and bathroom cabinets available mainly through internet retailers. Once you place the order online, cabinets are shipped to you flat-packed. Assembly is simple because of the cam lock and bracket system that most makers integrate.

IKEA

IKEA cabinets represent the confluence of factors that make for an inexpensive cabinet: self-assembly, medium-density fiberboard (MDF) construction, and the ability to physically pick them up yourself. 

IKEA cabinets fall into the RTA cabinet category since most of their cabinets are flat-packed and require assembly. But IKEA deserves its own spotlight since these cabinets can be purchased and picked up at brick-and-mortar stores, saving on shipping.

Warehouse Club Stores

Warehouse membership club stores such as Costco and Sam's Club are known for low prices on many products. Quality tends to be high. Costco has had a long association with Florida-based All Wood Cabinetry, which does live up to the "all wood" part of its name since cabinet cores are made entirely of furniture-grade plywood and veneers.

Showroom Display Cabinets

When shopping for cabinets, you pass by these things and perhaps never consider that they may be just what you need. They are called kitchen cabinet displays, the type you see set up in home improvement stores and at local independent kitchen and bath design retail showrooms.

These fictional tableaux constructed from real cabinets often come loaded with bonuses, like bread boxes, pull-outs, sliding spice racks, and more. Finding and securing display kitchen cabinets means persistence, legwork, and keeping in contact with the store manager.

Tips For Finding Cheap or Low-Cost Cabinets

• Quality can vary, so carefully study photos of the cabinets and speak to the owner.
• Listings move fast in Craiglist. Set up automatic email alerts to notify you when items come up matching selected keywords.
• Used cabinets can be painted. Quality cabinet paint can be expensive, but its steep cost is mitigated by the reduced cost of the cabinets.
• Free shipping for RTA cabinets applies to large orders, a consideration if you are remodeling your entire kitchen.
• Used cabinet hardware might be outdated. Simply purchase your own hardware and install it yourself.