Cabinet hardware can serve as an easy and cost effective tool in updating your kitchen cabinets, bath vanities, and dressers. Let’s face it – home improvement projects are expensive, time-consuming, and more often than not, stressful. If you need to quickly change your scenery, knobs and pulls may be the answer.
There are a few guidelines one should keep in mind when changing the cabinet hardware of existing cabinetry.
Start with Measurements
First, you’ll need to confirm certain key measurements. If you will be replacing any handles or pulls (hardware that requires two mounting screws for installation), it is absolutely essential that you measure the spread between the screw holes. This measurement is referred to as the center to center (C-C) dimension, boring size, hole distance, or hole drilling dimension. The most common C-C dimensions of cabinet pulls are 3’’ (76MM), 3 ½’’ (89MM), 3 ¾’’ (96MM), and 5’’ (128MM).
On occasion, homeowners will discover that there are a limited number of drawer pulls on the market that will accommodate their existing cabinets’ hole drilling measurements. This circumstance most often arises in the case of older dressers or furniture that may have had custom or oddball hardware installed, like 2 ¾’’ C-C pulls. More often than not, homeowners will be able to find one or two options, but having so few choices when considerations of style and finish are also at play can lead to a frustrating dead-end. If you find yourself in this situation, we recommend utilizing pull/backplate sets to make life a lot easier! Backplates will allow you to cover the pre-existing holes in your doors or drawers with a decorative piece that matches in style and finish with the selected cabinet pulls. You’ll need to re-drill to accommodate the borings of your new cabinet pulls and backplates so your project may become more time consuming than originally planned, but hey, this is still a time and budget friendly way to make a huge difference in your home.
Style and Finish
Sure, you probably have a soft spot in your heart for those drawer pulls on grandma’s dresser, but there’s no point to getting a face lift if you still look old after the procedure is done! So here is the Knob Talk mantra for those looking to update their cabinetry or furniture: Don’t replace ‘em, completely change ‘em. If you want to give new life to those doors and drawers, the key is to find something different that is still in keeping with the style and color or finish of the relevant doors and drawer fronts.
You want your new decorative hardware to stand out and highlight other coordinating accents in the home. Homeowners often make the mistake of trying to “match” other fixtures and pieces in a given room. This goal is almost impossible to accomplish, especially in the instance when you are not doing a full renovation. Let your knobs and pulls catch the eye and give your space a new personality, but do not get bogged down in trying to perfectly match your new hardware with other accents in your home.
Try using our advanced search to narrow your options down by dimensions and finish and then order cabinet hardware samples to see how your selections will coordinate with the other features of your space.
