Would I keep them? No. They are old, inefficient, and not enough drawers. Whether or not you can uninstall and reinstall is a maybe. It would not be unusual for cabinets of tnis age to be built in place and not actually separate cabinets. Not a carpenter, but I believe this would complicate any attempt.

Congratulations on your house! The kitchen is really cute. As first time homeowners, you are probably not sitting on a pile of cash, so I would base my decision on cost. What needs to be done to remediate the mold? How much damage will be done to the kitchen to get this done? Does the kitchen function for you or do you have a remodel planned in the future? If the cabs can be reused, is the cost savings significant enough to reuse them?

If the cabinets are original they were most likely build in place and not boxes at all which may make saving them difficult. Evaluate carefully what you have before making a decision.

I grapple with decisions of buy or not to buy almost weekly but it never crossed my mind to leave the decision to strangers. I really believe you and pard should spring for new cabinets.

@klem1 Of course we will make the ultimate decision based on many factors, but I thought getting advice and perspective from more experienced renovators and homeowners was the whole point of this forum, my apologies if I misunderstood ✌️

Thanks @ShadyWillowFarm! All good questions. We think the cost of remediating the mold could be $20k or more, and will involve ripping out at least the ceiling and wall to the right to replace the insulation and put in new drywall. From what other comments are saying and now that I'm looking more closely, these cabinets were almost certainly built into place so salvaging them might not be a realistic option at all.

Remodeling the kitchen wasn't even close to the top of our priority list. So part of our thinking was, how can we reuse as much as possible within reason, and maybe maintain some of the original character vs. using this as an "opportunity" to do a more modern remodel and maybe get back some portion of the cost in added home value. Most buyers in this area seem to go for millennial (read: white/grey) and modern style though it's not to our personal taste. Sure would be helpful to have a dishwasher at the very least!

The cabinets look to be in great condition, so yes, I would keep them. They are very appropriate for your cottage styled house. I would do everything I could to keep them.

I will give you advice as someone going through a very similar time — renovating because we have to, not because we wanted ”the latest style kitchen.”

Your biggest problem is that you will be limited by your contractors, or by what you can do yourself realistically. We couldn’t get anyone to do something reasonable in our kitchen - it was 100k or nothing. But we couldn’t live with a big hole where a kitchen should be either. We have had to do it all by hiring individual contractors and designing and installing ourselves. It is working but it’s a lot of stress and work. So yes, I think you should try to save them, at least until you know how much money you have left after the mold is cleaned up. But you’ll be limited by what the mold people are willing or able to do. In this forum, 99% of people will recommend the newest everything but not everyone has the money or the will to put 100k into a room.

You’ve gotten lots of great advice here so I’ll just add my experience with vintage kitchens. Our first home had the 1960s original built-in cabinets. We lived with them happily for 15 years but the hinges finally started to fail, veneer was chipping off, and we wanted to add extra cabinets to the space to add storage. It was cheaper to replace everything and start new so we did. Our current home has the original 1940s kitchen. My initial impulse was to gut it but after living here a few months, I realized the build quality is excellent (solid wood) and with relatively small tweaks, we can make improvements for modern living while maintaining the vintage charm.

If you can save them after all the other repairs, I would try to. They’re so cute! And don’t worry too much about future buyers— there will be one that likes vintage homes too or they’ll be happy it’s a “dated” kitchen they can rip out without remorse.