I know coming from me this is a little biased-but if the pilot holes are drilled properly they will not loosen. The key when installing anything that mounts with wood screws is to drill the right size hole and screw them in straight. It's a little trickier than drilling a through hole and bolting but when done properly it works perfectly. The wood expands around the threads in the wood screws and actually gets tighter over time. Even bin pulls mounted with wood screws on appliance drawers don't give. As an aside-we can provide color matched flat headed machine screws and nuts if needed but I don't recommend it. Sometimes there are applications where you need to throughbolts-usually when you are relying on the machine screws to hold two pieces of wood together.

Good to know centered is an option. I wish I had taken a picture of the old cup pulls before I removed the panels for sanding and painting. I think they looked okay, but I wasn't evaluating them for positioning at the time! WindyCityLindy, I'm with you on the "why'd they do that?" aspect. I can probably rule out the top of the recessed panel position. Does anyone with freezer drawers have an opinion based on the height of the pulls? Putting them on the top rail would maybe be a tad high for the top drawer, but a good location for the bottom drawer. I'm a little concerned that centering them would put the pulls rather low ergonomically. I'm only 5'2", but my DH is 6' and that's a bit of the bend.

Hard to know if I am picturing what you are describing right (pictures -- layout drawings, etc. would be good), but what about using a finger pull at the side or top corner of the sink pull-out -- away from the overlay. Most of the ones I've seen are simple enough to blend in with other hardware -- plus, it will be right under the counter and not likely to draw a lot of attention. I don't know what the spice rack is -- 6" base, upper, tall??? What size is your trash bin? Maybe you can get a smaller pail to go inside it, have the cabinet cut down and find the extra inches to use the spice rack? Again, pictures would help us know if we are even thinking in the right direction.

I have the 4 door copper handles the dishwasher handle and double oven handles all the original boxes unused one not even open. All copper let me know if you want for half the retail price as they would not restock opened boxes. I prefer the copper handles but the brush bronze that came with appliances goes seamlessly with my other hardware so I am keeping the original bronze and selling the brand new copper that has never been used. Gorgeous. Stunning. t me know