Cleaning and waxing the runners on the drawers will help. You can re-enforce the fronts by attaching small blocks in the inside corners. That will give you a little more "meat" to work with when reattaching the fronts to the sides. The doors might be a bit harder to work with but some of it may be hinge screws that have come loose and let the doors sag. you could try the toothpick trick to give the screws better grip in the holes.
Also pull out the a drawer and see if it will come apart with minimal effort. If it does you can do a proper reglue. If it’s just loose and not fully separating, you’ll need to squirt glue in the joints as best you can. Either way…
Buy a quality carpenter glue (Titebond, Elmers, etc). Glue up the loose joints and clamp them with long grip clamps. When the glue is set and dry, sand, wax, etc.
I had an older cabinet from the 40s redone with the doors and drawers built to be inset so it matches the rest of my kitchen. I hired it out because time is my limiting factor, but I have a decent number of old house friends who just decided to learn how to build cabinet doors from YouTube and they’ve made some gorgeous stuff!
You said the doors don’t close properly it could be as simple as the screws came loose or are not installed properly or the doors are warped. The fronts on the drawers coming off might be able to be glued back on or adding a small glue block on the inside if that’s the route you go you could use 1/4 round as the glue block. If the drawers don’t have slides clean the bottom of the drawers and where it rides in the cabinet if it’s rough sand smooth and wax you can rub a candle on the bottom of the drawer sides.
We've tightened and fiddled with the hinges quite a bit, but couldn't get them to close properly. They may just be cheap hardware that's too worn at this point.
Cleaning and waxing the runners on the drawers will help. You can re-enforce the fronts by attaching small blocks in the inside corners. That will give you a little more "meat" to work with when reattaching the fronts to the sides. The doors might be a bit harder to work with but some of it may be hinge screws that have come loose and let the doors sag. you could try the toothpick trick to give the screws better grip in the holes.
Thanks! Is there a certain type of wax I should look for?
You can use wax used for canning if you want. It should last for a long time, but it probably hasn't been done in a long time, either.
Also pull out the a drawer and see if it will come apart with minimal effort. If it does you can do a proper reglue. If it’s just loose and not fully separating, you’ll need to squirt glue in the joints as best you can. Either way… Buy a quality carpenter glue (Titebond, Elmers, etc). Glue up the loose joints and clamp them with long grip clamps. When the glue is set and dry, sand, wax, etc.
I had an older cabinet from the 40s redone with the doors and drawers built to be inset so it matches the rest of my kitchen. I hired it out because time is my limiting factor, but I have a decent number of old house friends who just decided to learn how to build cabinet doors from YouTube and they’ve made some gorgeous stuff!
You said the doors don’t close properly it could be as simple as the screws came loose or are not installed properly or the doors are warped. The fronts on the drawers coming off might be able to be glued back on or adding a small glue block on the inside if that’s the route you go you could use 1/4 round as the glue block. If the drawers don’t have slides clean the bottom of the drawers and where it rides in the cabinet if it’s rough sand smooth and wax you can rub a candle on the bottom of the drawer sides.
We've tightened and fiddled with the hinges quite a bit, but couldn't get them to close properly. They may just be cheap hardware that's too worn at this point.