How To Easily Add Hardware To Cabinets

Adding hardware to the cabinets in both the kitchen and the bathrooms seems to really take a home to the next level when it comes to style. It gives a finishing touch that makes a home have the feeling that all of the tiniest details have been accounted for. After moving in, we decided to add the hardware ourselves.

My husband went to Lowe’s and bought a cabinet and drawer template that lines up with the corner of the cabinet and gives you the perfect hole placement, so you have the exact same spot on every cabinet.

This template shown here is called Liberty ALIGNright Clear Cabinet Mounting Template and can be purchased at Lowe’s in store and online. The inventor of this simple template is a genius and every DIYer who has done this home project is thanking them up and down for it! I can only imagine trying to decide exactly where to drill without it and trying to perfectly measure the same spot on every cabinet every time without fail and getting it right. It would be incredibly difficult and a bit daunting! This template takes all the guesswork out of this and allows you to get the knob in the same spot every time. The kit also includes a template for placing the holes in a drawer for adding pulls.

Since this tool makes the task of adding the knobs and pulls so easy, the hard task may be actually narrowing down your choices. Home improvement retailers offer countless styles, sizes, metals, and finishes, so choosing can be very tough. In fact, we bought one pull and knob for 4 different styles and colors to start. We have oil rubbed bronze doorknobs, light fixtures and plumbing fixtures, and we discovered it can be a little difficult to match the tone and shade of the oil rubbed bronze finish already in a home. Ours tends to be very dark, almost black, and often oil rubbed bronze can lean towards being light brown almost copper in color. And, interestingly enough black wouldn’t work; it was too dark. Next, there is an abundant amount of styles and sizes, so once you get the color determined, then we tried the style we liked in a couple of different sizes. The first size just seemed a little too big for the drawers. Of course, once we narrowed it down, then it may be easier to order what you need online. Our local store had all but 2, and decided it may be easier to order online, but my husband went to the next closest store. And, by all means, with projects such as this, I always think buying a few extras is a good idea. Who knows? You may decide to add some cabinetry to your master bath, or a mud room in the future and having these in your workshop ready and waiting will be one less thing to worry about tracking down when that project comes together.

Here’s a few tips:

1) When you begin, I’d start with your first cabinet or drawer in a place that is the least visible in case there is a mishap. Drilling into your brand-new beautiful cabinetry is a unnerving and what if the dog barks right when you start the drill and you’re startled? Or the doorbell rings? You get the idea… You’re going to be a little nervous the first couple of times you drill and starting in the master bath, or another less visible spot may be a good idea until you feel more confident in your abilities. Then, move into the highly visible areas like your kitchen.

2) The fixed drawers under your sink, they need pulls, too. Although they aren’t functioning drawers, leaving pulls off the fixed drawers tends to look incomplete.

3) By all means try to match the overall style of your home. If you have one of those Craftsman style home designs like we do, chances are ultra-modern pulls and knobs would be a major eyesore. Let the hardware enhance the interior instead of detracting, or even distracting!

4) You can buy each piece of hardware separately, which is what we did, but after our project was complete and we were at the store for something else, we noticed you can buy hardware sets. They appeared to be good quality and far less expensive than buying them separately.

Now, have fun looking for the perfect style for your home! Most people will try to match the lighting and plumbing fixture colors, styles and finishes. And, as we all know, decorating trends change so fast, so what’s popular today won’t be tomorrow, so just go with what you like and what looks great now.

You can always change later, as you will see from this kitchen example. It gives the kitchen an entirely different style just by changing out the hardware! And the beauty of it is, this is a relatively inexpensive project that you’ll now be able to conquer yourself!