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Where do I put my knobs and cup pulls?

15 years ago

I would love your opinions on where to place my pulls. They are simple matte black knobs for all doors, and cup pulls for all drawers. I would like to put two pulls on each drawer > 27".

So, should I put the knobs in the exact corner of the door, or go with the placement that is an inch above that? And, should I put my pulls at the center (vertically) of each drawer, or in the top 1/3? Note the detail we have on the fronts of our drawers (there is a horizontal detail our cabinet maker added to grab some glaze and break things up a bit)

I am leaning towards exact corner for knobs and vertical center for drawers, but would love some design opinions.

For what it is worth, DH and I are both tall, and my cabinets go all the way to the ceiling.

And one more question: How far in from the left and right do you go on the drawers to put the two pulls? I thought I'd find the center of the drawer, then find the center from that point out, and put the drawer pulls there.

Thanks in advance.

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Comments (8)

gardenwebber
Original Author
15 years ago
{{!gwi}}
Laurie
15 years ago
The wood on your cabinets looks really nice, I like the color, too!
Some of our cabinets have the center piece of wood (a stile?)that we wanted to be careful about letting the head of the screw clear this. See picture below. Maybe the clear bumper thing would have prevented that but not sure. The pulls were centered on all the drawers.
Here's where we put our knobs & pulls.
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My cab maker said our top drawers will be 4 3/4" and with rails there will be 1 3/4" space in between for hardware. Springroz has 3" space in between and Christine has 6" drawers with 3" in between. That could be the difference. Out of our 26 drawers, only 8 are small top drawers so maybe I should do slab on those. Looking back I do like the look for the top drawer. I was just "scared" that without a bead they may be too plain but I think with everything else that goes on in a kitchen it will probably look great anyway! Just making sure with cab maker all the top drawers are 4 3/4" before I make a final decision : )
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How did you decide where to put knobs and pulls?
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Pinktoes, My widest drawer is 30" wide on the drawer beneath the combo wall oven, it only has a single pull centered according to the rules above. Although at the end of the kitchen I have a 44" wide recycling drawer with six bins inside. For that since it is faced with two separate doors, it got two pulls. But to tell the truth I still only pull on one of them to open it. I think it is purely an aesthetics issue. I think that if you need to have two pulls on a drawer and need to pull evenly on both of them to avoid racking the drawer or bending the drawer slides, especially on newly constructed cabinets, then you need to find a less crappy cabinet maker. With that said, I agree that the handle layout shown above by gardenergwen is the right decision for that bank of cabinets.
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Since many people on this board are building a "forever house" and care about aging-in-place, I vote against knobs. As you age, they'll be the most problematic to pull open. The easiest thing for aging would probably be a wiiiiiiide staple-type pull or similar. These have the added benefit of doubling as a towel holder. However, I do agree that I'd hit my hip or catch my clothes on them. And they're more modern-looking than I want. Between cup pulls and handles, I don't see a great deal of difference in functionality. I vote for a combination of them: cup pulls on the lower drawers, handles on the upper cabinets. Another question worth mentioning: What type of material ages well? In my kitchen, I have antique brass, which has been in place probably a decade. It still looks great. No visible wear, and they weren't expensive items in the first place. In my bathroom I have builder-grade junk: I don't know what material it is, but it's a goldish tone painted white on the front (okay, perhaps it was white all over when it was new around 1970?). It's 100% functional, not a single handle is in bad shape. The look is quite outdated, but no complaints about the function.
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Thanks for the input. Near unanimous to rely on my tin-eye to position the pulls. It is telling me to center the holes and let the body of the pull sit above the vertical center of the drawer. So that's what I'll do. I guess if it looks wrong later on I can get a slightly wider cup pull and position it lower covering the old holes. Thanks again, Barry
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suzieca
15 years ago
Have you tried doing a google search on "Knob placement"...there's lots of info w/photos which might be easier than trying to write a description. HTH
suzieca
15 years ago
here's a discussion about it on this forum...HTH

Here is a link that might be useful: knob placement
bob_cville
15 years ago
I'm not a fan of knobs, so I think the best possible placement of knobs, is to place them back in the bin at the hardware store, and to select pulls for your doors. :-)

Of the knob options in the other thread, I like lily1342's. To my eye putting the knob centered in the intersection of the stile and rail is too low for the uppers.

For my drawer pulls, I centered the pulls vertically on the top-most drawers, but for the larger lower drawers, I placed the drawer pull higher than the center, so that the distance from the top of the drawer to the handle was the same for all drawers.
gardenwebber
Original Author
15 years ago
Just reporting that I decided to go with my knobs at just a bit above the center of the corner, and my pulls are all at vertical/horizontal center. All drawers larger than 27" got 2 pulls. I like it that way. I noticed that when I am standing to the right or left of the drawer, there is a handle on either side. Better than reaching to towards the middle. IMHO

{{!gwi}}
cambro5
15 years ago
I have egg shaped pulls and when the cabinet guy put them on he said they usually put them so the bottom tip of the pull lined up with the edge of the raised panel.
Laurie
15 years ago
gardenwebber - looks great!! What a nice touch hardware can give to the look of a kitchen. Plus, it will help keep the wood cleaner over the years of use.
cambro5 - I like your hardware, as well...and those glass doors : )

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