I have routed pulls on my upper cabinets. I like them, but you have to have clean hands.

The magnetic catches that you push and the the cabinet pops open...the fronts of the cabinets get finger printy, and the catches seem to get out of alignment.

You could also use a little L shaped pull that mounts to the back of the door or drawer and extends slightly over the top or bottom edge of the door.

Look at Master Metal Works. They may be too expensive but they will give you the idea.

i got haefle finger pulls for my spice pullouts because i didn't want knobs on them. we have painted cabinets and my kd thought that the paint may wear differently in the spot that i would grab the spice pullouts....they sound like what palimpsest suggested....mayne the haefle are cheaper....

We have them (finger pulls) in our kitchen - I think one downside is that you don't get the added bling that they provide. Of course, the corresponding upside is that it's one less thing to choose for your kitchen :-)

It is important to have clean hands or the finger pulls get grungy, but really if you're grabbing knobs with dirty hands they'll get dirty, too (and might be harder to clean?)

I had routed fingerpulls in a former house and I did not like them. I am a klutz of the first water. Seems like my hands would slip often, leaving me with lots of broken fingernails.

Hi there,
It's interesting that you bring this up. When we bought our last home in 1988, they had this type of door. I had two previous homes before this and thought it was really different because we always had pulls and knobs, but I was told that this was the "new" thing. I then noticed in all of the new homes, that's how the doors were designed, and actually, if you had pulls/knobs on your cabs, you were "outdated." So it was the fad at the time, obviously. I then started to notice about 5 years or so ago that pulls/knobs were becomimg popular again, so when we refaced our cabs, we added them (just took off the magnets, obviously!) So what I'm saying is that it's not the current "trend" to go the way you want to, but other than that, it's definitely what you want that matters. I personally did not like them because even though we originally had stain on the cabs, when the light hit them, wow, you could see all of the fingerprints that I did not notice before. And of course, you then have to clean them really well because fingerprints have oil in them and don't just wash off unless you wipe them down EACH time you grab the door because the oils in a clean finger still leaves a mark eventually. Other than that, they looked good, but now I see that they were a little bit plain.

I would recommend against that. We recently moved into a house with a kitchen that has oak doors with pulls routed into the wood. The finish on all the doors and frames is stained and scratched from 18 years of hands and fingernails. Yuck. Some of the doors have had to be cleaned numerous times because the oily grime is so deep in the wood where the finish scratched off. Then, if we refinish or paint and add knobs we have the routed spots showing from the top.

We have both the same finger pulls (Haefele 124.02.9) as my good friend gglks

and a magnetic push door

The magnetic push is really handy, but maybe too much so: my two year-old can (& often does) freely "break in" to it. Consequently, the front of the door is f-i-l-t-h-y! Okay, so it's painted white, which is only an invitation to dirt and fingerprints, but it is something to consider. (That being said, for our purpose it works well and I wouldn't do it differently. I'd just try and have a different mindset about seeing the dirt.)

Another vote against finger pulls from another 1988 fashion victim. Sooner or later, the cabinet gets grubby, and sooner or later, you scrub with soap and water, and sooner or later, your cabinet finish wears down.

Those routed doors / knobless doors are horrible, horrible things. Had them before and will never have them again. They get filthy, they're hard to use and they break fingernails.

Since we always wear white gloves in the kitchen, I don't think that dirt should be a problem. Actually I might try to sneak a motorcycle part into the kitchen sink when I don't think my wife is watching. Sounds like the consensus is agin
these Scan design abominations.

Thanks for the replies!

The Haefele 124.02.910 recommended by gglks and rmkitchen when used in cabinets that abut at a 90 degree angle would permit the use of very narrow filler strips (only slightly wider than the thickness of the cabinet doors or drawers) IF the abutting cabinet door/drawer configuration allows the protruding pull of an opening door or drawer of the perpendicular cabinet to pass over the top of its closed door or drawer.

I can't stand them, they fit very few hands and break your fingernails, plus they are more difficult to open that ones with drawer pulls. I don't need to be annoyed EVERY time I open a drawer! My main consideration in pulls is "hand feel", then how they look. Life's too short!
And this applies to vehicles, too--so listen up, car designers!

Carla in Sac