Is the top shallower drawer recessed panel or slab?

Some find the pulls a tight fit in a shallow recessed panel, but those RH pulls look pretty slim so you should be fine.

Go with your gut. I like them in the center of the drawers, and this way if you change your mind in the future and go with a different handle, it will look OK.

Either is fine, except for the issue that Tim mentions on short drawers. There was a store display that had a short 5 piece drawer with a handle mounted on the recessed panel and the rails were so close to the handle that ones fingers scraped annoyingly against them when using the pull.

We put them on the top rail of our 5 piece drawers. Our cabinets are slab for the shorter drawers and 5 piece for the drawers 8" or more high which are mostly on the bottom. Having the handle on the rail means less bending to reach it.

Plus, I like the look as the handle is on the stronger (thicker) part of the drawer front, but no one with it in the center has posted that it pulled out or broke the drawer front so that isn't an important difference.

In lowers, we have some slab front drawers just below the countertop and recessed ones elsewhere. We put ours in center of recessed panel and similar on the flat.
No big deal. We pull from the center of the drawer. For lower cabinets we have pull outside of the panel in an upper corner. On the upper cabs we put pulls on the lower corner outside of the panel.

I agree about watching for knuckle rubbing.

Here's how we did ours:

{{!gwi}}

Thanks for the input.
All the drawers are recessed panel.
The Duluth pulls are quite narrow, so no problem fitting them into the recessed panel. But hadn't thought about scraped knuckles.
Suzannes look great installed on the top rail and that might be the way to go.
More to think about.

This is how we did ours.

Ours are in the middle and have worked out fine so far.

I went through this dilemma. My cabinetmaker told me that shaker 5-piece drawer fronts are made two ways: most commonly, the center panel is a thin piece of wood, sometimes just 1/4" thick and flat on both sides. In the other option, the center panel is actually a reversed raised-panel, with the flat side "out" and the raised side "in". In that case, it's a full 3/4"+ thick. She advised that it's better to have the pulls in thick material (especially for big heavy drawers) so in the first case they should go in the frame. We have the reverse-raised-panel type, so ours are in the centers.

We have our pulls in the center of our shaker 5-piece drawer fronts. The front panel is a thinner piece of wood, but the actual drawer box which sits behind the drawer front it is 1/2" thick. The pull is installed through both pieces so it is quite thick (3/4") and strong enough.

So, you should check and see how your drawers are constructed to see if there is something behind your drawer front or not.

We have a 1/2" thick drawer box behind the thinner drawer front, so I think both installations would be options.
I'm being a little bit pressured to decide this week so the cabinet maker can install them, but I think I can live with blue tape pulls for a bit until I'm sure how to position them.
Someone remind me how to make those blue tape pulls...

I lived with my custom, hand-made, blue tape pulls for weeks until my actual pulls were installed Friday. There are some tips on this thread. Make sure you start with a long enough strip of tape.

I still suggest having someone hold the pull on a drawer while you pretend to reach and use it. If that cup pull doesn't have enough projection, you won't be able to get your fingers under it on a short 5 piece drawer, regardless of drawer front construction. Looks don't much matter if you have trouble opening a drawer.

Here is a link that might be useful: Custom blue tape pulls

Sorry, I rearranged that picture right out reach.

Thanks Badgergal and Suzannesl for those pictures.

We went center drawer on everything. The drawer fronts are all mounted to drawer boxes, so there's plenty of strength when the drawers are opened. (We keep our cast iron pots in the lower right-hand drawer under the stove.)

We put ours in the center of the drawer. For the larger drawers we used two. My original choice for hardware was cup pulls, but I was concerned with how my little ones would dirty/scratch up my cabinets. I'm very happy with my decision, and it was a tough one to make. Too many choices!!

Lori

Old pic...