kitchen cabinets hardware

[Anonymous]

Our new house's cabinets/drawers have no handles or pulls. I thought I'd like this nice clean look, but it's turned in to a pain. Literally, it hurts my fingers to try to find the position to best open the doors and especially drawers.

Our cabinets are really good upgraded quality and my husband is furious I would consider a DIY, but it seems like with the available template they sell at home improvement stores and reasonably priced pulls/knobs, I could install myself.

Anyone successfully attempted this? Are the $4 Lowe's brand pulls ok, or is it really necessary to go with the pricier $20+ knobs?

[Anonymous]

I have the cheapos from Home Depot. They look great. Installed two years ago. In my last house I went for the expensive ones. No difference I can ascertain.

I did not install them myself. I paid an excellent carpenter $50 per hour to do it. He did it perfectly. I would screw one up, and our cabinet door would be ruined. Not worth it to me.

[Anonymous]

I would hire this out. The potential for a mistake--and thus DH's righteous annoyance--make DIY not worth it.

[Anonymous]

I personally think that DIY with a template should be fine. I bought our cabinet pulls from Overstock.com and I think they are wonderful. Home Depot is fine, too. Anything over $5 per knob is terribly overpriced. The ones I have from Overstock are sold in bulk and I paid less than $3 each for them.

[Anonymous]

I think hardware is something that can make a nice difference in your kitchen if you choose wisely in terms of style and finish.
Nice hardware can be fine from home depot/lowes, but there are so many other nice options out there too!
I am doing a kitchen reno now and have selected pulls from Restoration Hardware and knobs from a local hardware company. the pulls averaged about $13 each (I need a few different sizes) and the knobs are $7.50 each. I have a small kitchen so it's not too bad. I wanted something more special than what you can get off the shelf at home depot. However, the quality is going to be just fine at any place pretty much. You'll tire of them before they wear out so if you find a good deal, jump on it!

[Anonymous]

I did this in my old house using the template from Home Depot. I DIY'd it. I am not super handy but it was easy. My cabinets were old and nothing special so I did not sweat it. I did make sure to measure everything twice before drilling.

[Anonymous]

We had our pulls installed (and I'd be nervous about doing it myself-- even though it's easy, I'm the person who can't hang a picture straight even after measuring twice, so I wouldn't trust myself to potentially mess up a cabinet front!), but we bought the pulls from Home Depot and I'm very, very happy we didn't spend more on them. We did semi-custom cabinetry (necessary to get the height we wanted) which was a big expense; for me, the incremental difference in aesthetics for more expensive knobs wasn't worth the cost.

[Anonymous]

I just installed knobs, back plates, and pulls from KBHardware.com. Very reasonably priced (comparable to Home Depot) and much wider selection. Also delivered very quickly. A lot (but not all) of the lower priced cabinet hardware is surprisingly nice quality. I was replacing existing hardware, so it was easy.

I've done lots of home maintenance work, but I would not risk making a mistake on cabinet doors, especially since decades of home ownership have taught me that if your husband is adamantly opposed to something, he'll find a way to hate it and will take it out on you. This is why God made handymen.