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Choosing Cabinet Hardware

Thursday, July 17th, 2003

Want to liven up your kitchen or bathroom but can’t afford to remodel or purchase new cabinets? One cost effective way to get that fresh new look is to install new hardware on your cabinets and drawers. You have two main designs to choose from; Pulls or Knobs. From these two designs there are near unlimited options in materials, prices and specific styles to choose from. A pull is of course a handle type design utilizing the whole hand, where as a knob requires only a finger or two and is a smaller and most often rounded piece.

Pulls and knobs range in sizes, shapes, colors and materials. Some of the more common materials that cabinet hardware is made of are; brass, bronze, nickel, pewter, glass, plastic, stainless steel and of course wood. You can also get them brushed, polished or even semi-transparent depending on what you are looking for.

Knobs come in various shapes such as a barrel or oval shape, acorn, round and several others. You want to determine the size of the knob and material it’s made from based on aesthetic appeal and utility. For instance if it’s a drawer with heavy items in it, a larger size and perhaps a brass knob would be in order as opposed to a soft wood or glass. For long drawers two knobs may be in order.

Pulls have the advantage of being sturdier, as they are attached at two points, there are fewer materials to choose from but the designs tend to be more ornate. Pulls come in several varieties. They can be rounded, square or have ornate curvature to them. Also, they can be directly attached to a cabinet or drawer or hanging from a back plate.

Ultimately, whether you decide upon a pull or a knob the choice is yours. Once you weigh the choices in material, sizes, designs and price, you still have found a very cost effective way of perpetuating the beauty in your home.

Cabinet Door Styles

Thursday, February 20th, 2003

So you have decided to get brand new custom cabinets. You picked your material, be it wood, stainless steel or maybe even plastic laminate. Your next choice was possibly to finish it with stain or paint, or leave it natural. The next step, and sometimes the first, is to choose what style door front you would like for your cabinets or drawers.

Door styles can be broken down into three main categories; Solid or Slab doors, Raised panel doors and recessed panel doors. The Slab door style consists of one piece of wood or other material that is flat, and has a uniform consistency in thickness. If you have chosen a hardwood for your cabinet such as Alder, Birch or Walnut, this is not your design of choice as it is more prone to warping than the other two styles. For a door of this type, stainless steel or MDF (medium-density fiberboard) are better choices.

A recessed panel door is defined by the inside panel being recessed, or sunk in. Unlike Slab doors a recessed door is constructed using five pieces, the 4 outside rails with connecting stiles and of course the sunken center panel. Hardwoods are great choices for this type of door design. The five piece construction lends strength to the door preventing it from becoming warped. This is also true of raised panel doors.

Now, I don’t want to insult anybody here, but a raised panel door is… you guessed it, exactly the opposite of a recessed panel. It also is characteristically defined by five piece construction except with the center panel being raised, or matching the thickness of the outside rails. One major difference between raised and recessed doors is that although both can have many different profiles on the outer edges, only a raised style will have a profile on the center panel.

So finally you are almost finished with choosing your custom made cabinets, or perhaps you are just getting started. Either way, you are now armed with a wealth of information on front door styles for cabinets and drawers in your home. Although these are the basic three styles of door design, many more choices await you.