Hopefully one of the pros will help you out here. If not, I suggest you take a door to a high quality, full-service paint store. I've found their staff is usually knowledgeable and helpful. Good luck with your sale and move.

That is a replace, not repair. The paid labor to sand all of that back to bare wood and starting over with a new finish would cost more than buying all new. Or take months and months of DIY. You can not go over icky nasty peeling cabinets with anything that will look good or last. Not even short term. Plus, the new owner would be cursing you as much as the previous owner was cursed by you.

You will have to give a substantial price adjustment if you can’t do IKEA or something.

Can we see a picture of the kitchen? It might be best to just put it on the market & sell quickly.

Another idea is that if you take the cabinet door to a local wood working store, they may have an idea on what is on the door & how best to remove it so you can paint or otherwise improve the look of them. Around here we have Rockler and Woodworker's as two local chains.

Alternatively, hit the local hardware store & look for these solvents. Then test them against the wood. This graphic came from a good article here: https://www.woodmagazine.com/materials-guide/finishes/what-finish-is-that-anyway

I'm so sorry. You got the cart before the horse when you replace the counter and backsplash with these cabinets. You're going to probably lose even the countertops. I was able to save and re-use my Corian countertops when I redid my kitchen, but granite/quartz are hard to re-use.

I’ve removed wax with gasoline, but that was years ago before we became environmentally conscious. I don’t know how I survived some of the crazy DIY things I’ve done. You might be able to remove the wax with mineral spirits, steel wool and lots of elbow grease.

But if I needed to sell in a hurry I would just unfortunately sell it like it is and know you’ll take a loss. They cabinets really just need to be replaced.

mineral spirits to remove wax, or you could try floor stripper.

Y’all, the wax isn’t the issue. The issue is the gel stain stuff that’s under the wax isn’t adhering. Probably because that wasn’t prepped properly either. When you get to the point that you have adherence issues, nothing put on top is going to work. It will just look that much worse, and money will have been spent on a peeling issue that looks even worse than that..

So, the OP will have to remove the wax with a solvent and then sand the gel stain off. That is, if the gel stain doesn't come off with the solvent used to remove the wax.

I don't know if they still sell the heavy duty purple floor stripper, but if they do, I would give that a try. Keep in mind, as other posters have mentioned, that it might remove some or all of the gel stain. You will probably need to rinse it before you can sand and paint. Good luck with your project.

Ecostar has outlined a good prep process. Have you used any silicon products (e.g., Pledge) on the cabinets for the five years you lived there? Is the peeling and adhesion problem been a problem for the entire time or more recently popped up? Can you show more pictures of the kitchen?

Using the BIN will be very important here. It will help seal in any contaminants. If it were me, I would sand to the bare wood and then shellac it.

However, with selling the house and starting a new job out of state, do you have the time to devote to the project?