On Day 13 of The 30 Day Home Refresh, give your kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanity or a piece of furniture a quick makeover by changing the hardware. Here’s a guide to help you choose the perfect cabinet hardware for your space.
Types of Cabinet Hardware
Decide if you’d like to use all knobs, all pulls, or a combination of both. There are no hard and fast rules but it tends to be easier to open a cabinet with a knob and a drawer with a pull. If you’re replacing existing hardware, a knob for a knob is an easy switch. If you’re swapping a pull with another pull, measure the distance from the center of one screw hole to the center of the other screw hole. This is the standard industry measurement for sizing cabinet pulls. If you have a knob that you want to replace with a pull, you’ll have to drill new holes for the pull but you can use a backplate to cover the hole from the knob.
Determine Size
Small Drawers that are 12” wide or less typically work best with a pull that is 3” to 4” long or a knob that is 1” in diameter.
Medium Drawers that are between 12” wide to 30” wide work well with a pull that is between 4” to 8” long or a knob that is between 1” to 1.5” in diameter
Large Drawers that are 30” to 48"will require a pull that is longer than 8" or a knob that is 1" in diameter or greater. Using two smaller pulls for a large drawer also works great.
Choose a Finish
Cabinet hardware is available in a wide range of finishes. Don’t be afraid to mix metals, it creates visual interest. Keep the mix to three different metals at most. If you go for three different metals, break them down into 60-30-10 proportions. So for example, 60% of the metal finishes could be stainless steel, 30% could be brushed brass and 10% matte black. Cabinet hardware is an easy place to introduce a new metal finish since it will be a relatively small amount of that finish added to the space.
Do you have questions about selecting hardware for your specific space? Drop them in the comments below.