When one mistake is made, it’s best to not compound it by continuing to make more mistakes. In this case, unfortunately, you did the “cheap” option- DIY painting, without doing adequate prep since you skipped the deglossing/sanding and priming (cabinets need deglossed, sanded, and a high bonding primer applied 72 hours before painting. Then you need to be gentle with cabinets for a month while they fully cure). Painting over paint that is already peeling from the surface, is not an option- that will only create more weight on already non-bonded paint and cause it to peel even faster. You need to hire a professional, IMO, you are spending valuable money on materials, and also your time time (and time is money) only to do the job wrong. Even if you knew what to do, you wouldn’t have the physical practice to do it professionally. However if that isn’t an option, then if you’re going to DIY, at least use a chemical stripper to strip the cabinets down (wear hand and eye protection), then clean, let them dry, then sand cabinets, wipe off dust, apply a high bonding primer, wait 72 hours, then paint 2 full coats. Continuing to do the cheap route, will only continue to make your problem worse and cost you even more money later. It’s like saying “I didn’t replace a hose on my engine so now my car is shaking. But I don’t want to replace the hoses right. Can I just change my oil?” The answer, of course, is no, you need to do things the right way or it’ll cause more expensive problems later. I am big on investing myself, renting and flipping homes, etc, but taking shortcuts on prep is not a way to save money- it’s a way to quickly lose a lot more money. There’s no getting around doing them right. If cash isn’t available, perhaps find a contractor who can take payment after house is sold- or use credit card to hire contractor- etc.

The water v. cabinet issue has lots of people talk about it, but you kinda have to experience it to see the difference. Full disclosure - I have had some sizable leaks in two different brands of cabinets, including a valve break. Neither were ikea. I have ikea now. This was a monetary decision made after a lot of discussion. We modified all of the base cabinets by adding additional structural parts. I am prepared to ditch the sink cabinets if it becomes necessary and right on to kurtg that a sink base is the one place where the cost of actually doing any replacement completely overwhelms the value you can recover from the warranty. Some of the other things said above? Edge banding is for visual appearance, not a moisture barrier. Unless you are very fortunate, and the glue fills every millimeter of seam, it will not keep out water. YMMV on seams from an original manufacturer. Most cabinet plywood can beat up most particle board for moisture resistance. This is particularly true of ikea where one minute of water exposure to a cut edge is enough to cause deformation. The caulk idea expressed above is cute, but not really practical where pipes enter the bottom of the cabinet. Plus when almost every edge on the entire cabinet is a cut edge, its pretty difficult to make this work. So, how do I know it deforms? Because I tried it. A couple of those trials were yesterday on a cabinet part purchased within the last month. Dunk for a minute, wet sponge sitting on the surface and a decently long dunking of an end. I also tried other materials - like mdf, another companies particle board, hdf and two different types of cabinet plywood with differing cores. Ikea particle board was easily the worst at absorption and deformation. Hdf was easily the best at shape retention - no deformation even after 24 hours of immersion. In decending order of goodness: hdf, osb core cabinet plywood, mdf, home depot type veneer ply, other makers particle board and well behind that, ikea particle board. I will say that water sitting on just the coated surface - the really damp sponge test - took a long time to penetrate something over 10 hours. Water will penetrate all melamine coatings eventually. The problem isn't the coating - its what's inside of the coating. The particle board will tolerant no moisture. This isn't special to ikea. Other brands that use particle board cabinet bottoms (like one of the kinds I had) can also deform from standing water or continually being exposed to water or cleaning chemicals. The amount of time needed for deforming and the results depend on quality of the coating and the quality of the particle board. If you get a good long dunk, expect ikea to be destroyed. The low density fiberboard back is another weak spot. It has a very thin coating that is easily damaged. How easy? Piece of blue tape or slight bending or slide across a counter face down kinda easy. Will disintegrate on exposure to water. Intended as a dust back. It isn't structural - low density fiberboard has no structure. One of the famous weird things that gets said is the cabinet back will stop the cabinet from racking. It's laughable - the concept that this very soft stuff nailed into particle board - that can be pushed back out or bent by any small child - would be capable of structure. It's much more likely the racking will pull the nails out. Also from above, ikea base cabinets have two sides, a bottom and two puny cross pieces. The larger the cabinet, the weaker it is (even with the back attached). I very much doubt the bottom can be removed and the cabinet still has the same structure. They (being cabinet companies) used to sell, and some still do sell, a sink front that was framed - the actual sink cabinet was then built in place. But that was before big sinks and wide cabinets. Some of the large sinks and some of the countertop materials need some decent support up top. It can happen, but relying on just the two small mdf cross pieces with one fastener per end into a side piece held up only by cabinet connectors doesn't sound likely of being able to provide it. Mdf isn't known for its wonderful structural qualities either.

We went with the all white grimslov and we absolutely love them. We've had the kitchen for about 6 months now so obviously not a long time but the cabinets are fabulous. They clean really easily but I do need to clean them a lot more than my last kitchen's cabinets! Sometimes we'll get something like pasta sauce on them and when I clean it off it looks like it leaves a kind of residue or stain but I keep cleaning and it goes away, so I guess you just have to be diligent about that. They show dirt really easily, like dirty hands definitely leave marks, but again I just clean them more often. We don't have kids but we aren't gentle on our cabinets. I have 3 cats and they love to stretch up and let me know they are next to me while I'm cooking, and they destroyed our last kitchen cabinets-accidentally of course-just resting their claws on the top of the cabinets. We are trying to break them of this habit but they still do it occasionally and there is not a single tiny scratch on any of the cabinets. Everything else about them, we love. We got the tall cabinets and love all the space. The slow closes are amazing. And I know putting it all together sounds daunting but we actually thought it was fairly easy. The cover panels were by far the biggest headache, and putting the metal rail on uneven walls. But the actual putting together of each box was easy if you've put together furniture before. we got all 1 drawer + 1 door cabinets, (not all drawers like is popular), and the drawers were bigger than expected.. taller if that makes sense. So wasted space in the height of the drawer- not sure if that makes sense. So a few weeks later we installed ikeas drawers within a drawer and absolutely LOVE them. Ikea was great about everything too, though I was on hold for like an hour 3 or 4 times due to missing items. That was fun. But they were always super nice and when we returned things we didn't need, no questions or anything. lets see, I think that's about it! Any other questions I'd be happy to answer.

HDF is high density fiberboard as opposed to medium or low density fiberboard. As klem1 wrote, those gaps are excessive and should have been remedied by the manufacturer. Reason number one is any kind of fiber board is susceptible to moisture damage(swelling to start) and those cracks can be the start. HDF and MDF are my last choice for cabinets in moist rooms for that reason alone.