Repair or replace? A straight test for tired furniture

The decision is easier than it looks, and it turns on one question: is the carcass sound? The carcass is the box — the sides, the top, the bottom and the back. If that is square, dry and solid, almost everything else on the piece is worth repairing, because doors, shelves, hardware and finish are all replaceable parts fitted to a good frame. If the carcass has gone, you are paying to fix parts onto something that will not hold them.

The mistake most people make is judging the surface. Peeling laminate and scratched polish look terrible and mean nothing structurally. Meanwhile a wardrobe with a perfect front and a swollen, crumbling base is finished.

The five-minute test

Do these in order. Any two failures and replacement is usually the honest answer.

1. Push the piece diagonally. Does it rack — move like a parallelogram? A carcass out of square has failed at the back panel or the joints.
2. Press the bottom shelf and the back panel with a thumb. Soft, puffy or crumbly means swollen board that will not recover.
3. Look at the screw holes. If hinge cups and bracket screws have torn craters in the board, there is nothing left to fix into.
4. Tap the frame members. A hollow sound in solid timber means insect damage inside.
5. Ask what it is made of. Solid wood and good plywood are worth serious repair. Particle board past the swelling stage is not.

Repair usually wins when

• The piece is solid wood or plywood and the joints have simply loosened.
• A leg, a rail, a slat or a single shelf has broken.
• The hardware has failed — hinges, handles, sliding rollers, drawer channels.
• A wardrobe shutter has dropped but the carcass is fine.
• A door or window is sticking, sagging or out of alignment.
• Only the finish is damaged.

Replacement usually wins when

• The carcass is out of square and the back panel has torn away.
• Board has swollen across large areas and gone soft.
• Structural members are hollow with termite or borer damage.
• Multiple failures are stacking up — swollen base, blown hinge holes and a bent track on the same unit.
• The realistic repair cost is approaching the cost of a new piece in a better material.

Run the arithmetic honestly

Our carpentry rates make this easy to sketch out before anyone visits. A furniture repair — sofa legs, table, shelf or joint work — is ₹499. A bed frame repair covering slats, joints and legs is ₹499. Wardrobe sliding work, including track, roller and handle replacement, is ₹599. A door or window fix is ₹499. Custom wall-fixed shelving is ₹999. Parts and materials are charged at MRP and shown to you before fitting.

Set that against what the replacement really costs — not just the new unit, but delivery, fitting, disposing of the old one and, often, the fact that the new piece is made of thinner board than the one it replaces.

The middle path most people miss

Furniture is not all-or-nothing. Keeping a sound carcass and replacing only the failed parts is frequently the best value job in the house: new shutters on an old wardrobe box, a fresh bottom shelf and back panel under a kitchen unit, or a solid wood bed re-jointed and refinished. Good hardware from the old piece can often be reused.

The local twist worth knowing

If a piece failed because humidity and floor water got into cheap board, replacing it with the same material in the same spot repeats the failure. In this climate, and especially near the coast, the money is better spent on BWR plywood, sealed edges, legs that lift the unit off the floor and a ventilation gap behind. That is the difference between buying furniture twice and buying it once.

When to get a carpenter's view

If you genuinely cannot tell whether the carcass has gone — most common with kitchen units and built-in wardrobes, where you cannot see the back — have it looked at before you order a replacement. A visit that ends in "this is worth saving" is a cheap piece of advice, and one that ends in "this is done" saves you from spending on a repair that was never going to last.