Galaxy Horizon 4 Drawer Base Cabinets

The four-drawer configuration is offered only in the narrow widths, 15″, 18″ and 21″, because four tiers need to stay light and easy to pull. Each is 34½″ high and 24″ deep, four shallow drawers on ⅝″ dovetailed boxes and Blum Tandem plus Blumotion runners, each front a five-piece stained front like the doors.

Simpler inserts fit these drawers too: GHZ CD-15/18 at $201.50 and GHZ CD-21/24 at $273.00 for cutlery, GHZ UT-15/24 at $227.50 for utensils, and GH KCUP-18 at $224.25 for coffee pods. Shallow tiers limit what fits, and the listing does not give interior drawer heights, so tell us the insert and cabinet and we confirm it. They are on the drawer insert page. Prices are our displayed figures on the review date.

Almost everything that happens to a bottom drawer falls into one of two kinds, and telling them apart decides what you do next.

Marks on the finish sit on top of the clear coat: black scuffs from rubber soles, grey smudges from a mop, dried splashes, pet nose prints, the shine from a hand that pushes the drawer shut in the same spot. On a light stain like this one, dark rubber scuffs show more than they would on a dark finish, but they are also the easiest to remove, because nothing has actually been damaged. They are dirt.

Damage through the finish breaks or dents the wood: a chip on an edge from a vacuum head, a dent from a kicked toy, a scratch that goes through the stain. On a light grey-taupe stain the wood under the colour is often similar in lightness, so small scratches can be less obvious than on a dark stain, but they do not wash off. Run a fingernail across the mark. If it catches, it is damage; if it slides, it is on the surface.

Before reaching for anything that adds colour, clean the front properly. Fabuwood’s own care guidance is brief: blot spills rather than wiping them around, use only mild cleaners, and never spray a cleaner straight onto the wood. Put it on a soft cloth, wipe along the grain, and dry the front afterwards, including the recessed ledge around the panel where water collects.

For a rubber scuff, a slightly damp soft cloth with a drop of mild washing-up liquid usually lifts it with a little patience. Avoid abrasive powders, scouring pads and melamine sponges; they remove the mark by removing a little of the clear coat, and that leaves a dull patch that is harder to live with than the scuff was. That is general advice for a sealed wood finish, and your cabinet care guide has the full routine.

Look at the front again once it is dry, in ordinary light. Most of what looked like damage will have gone.

When a mark is real damage, the repair is a touch-up kit, not paint. Fabuwood’s spec book is clear that spray cans are not available for stained finishes, because a stain cannot be matched by spraying a colour over the top. Its touch-up kit for stocked finishes is a fill stick, a marker and a scraper, and the one listed for this finish is the Touch Up Kit at $62.40 on the loose parts page.

How each piece is used is general repair practice rather than a Fabuwood instruction, and it is worth practising on the back edge of a drawer front before working on the face.

1. Clean and dry the area first, so nothing is sealed in under the repair.
2. For a dent or chip, press the fill stick into it, slightly overfilling.
3. Level the fill with the scraper, working in the direction of the grain, until it is flush with the surface.
4. Use the marker to blend the edges and to draw light lines that follow the grain across the filled area, so it reads as wood rather than as a patch.
5. For a fine scratch, the marker alone is often enough. Build it up with light passes; a light stain shows too much marker more easily than too little.

The goal is to make the damage disappear from normal standing distance, not to make it invisible at close range. On the bottom drawer, which is seen from above and at an angle, that is usually very achievable.

A deep gouge across the panel, a split rail or water that has lifted the veneer on the panel is beyond a kit. The honest options are a replacement front or a replacement box.

A replacement front brings in a piece from a later production run. Fabuwood treats colour variation between stained pieces as normal, and its warranty says a replacement may not match existing cabinets; your originals will also have aged in your light since they were made. On the bottom of four fronts, a slight difference is less noticeable than anywhere else in the kitchen, because it is the lowest and least looked-at front in the run. Replacement drawer fronts are not listed as separate products, so call us with the cabinet code and we will find out what is available.

If the box is damaged but the fronts are good, the carcass is sold on its own: DB15-4-BO at $500.50, DB18-4-BO at $513.50 and DB21-4-BO at $533.00. The listing does not say whether drawer boxes and runners come with it; ask before ordering. Keeping the original fronts is always the better result on a stain.

The best repair is the one you never need. A few placement choices reduce what the bottom drawer goes through.

• Keep it out of the traffic lane. A four-drawer bank at the end of a run where people walk past, or at the end of an island, gets kicked far more than one between two other cabinets.
• Not beside the stools. At an island, the seating side is where shoes and chair legs meet cabinet fronts. Put drawers on the working side.
• Keep the toe kick intact. The recess under the cabinet gives feet somewhere to go. A matching toe kick, GH TK8 at $55.90 for eight feet, is on the toe kick page; do not let it be skipped to save time.
• Mind the mop. Wring it well and keep it off the fronts. Standing water at the bottom of a front is what eventually lifts a finish.

None of that is special to this finish; it is simply where the lowest drawer lives. What is specific is how it is repaired, and that is why the kit belongs on the first order. The cabinet lifespan guide shows which parts of a cabinet wear first, and the cabinet parts guide names the toe kick and every other component.

If four shallow drawers are more sorting than you need, the three-drawer page has the same widths with deeper lower drawers. For a door with one drawer above it, see the single-door page. The finish itself is on the collection page, and if you are planning the whole kitchen, the free 3D design service will place each bank with traffic and seating in mind.