Cabinet Hardware Basics

Your kitchen cabinets are installed. Now, it’s time to put it all together with a finishing detail, the hardware. This includes the hinges and the knobs and pulls for the cabinet doors and drawers. Your cabinet hardware serves two purposes: functional and aesthetic. Although certain styles of cabinets will suggest a particular hardware design, don’t let that limit your expression. The range of style choices and sizes is mind boggling, reflecting every taste and style. Just be sure to choose hardware that’s in proper proportion to the dimensions of the doors and the drawers, and which provide the decorative accent to your other kitchen fixtures and accessories.

Reinstalling the doors and hinges after removing them for your cabinet install is simply a matter of positioning them so the hinges line up with the existing holes, then attaching them with the same screws. Once the hinges are secured, check the operation of each door to see that it freely opens and closes. When installing knobs, you’ll only need to drill one hole for a single screw. Door pulls and handles typically require two mounting screws. The distance between the screws is measured from the center of one hole to the center of the other. The industry standard is three inches on center but always check your hardware before drilling any holes. Marking these holes is not something you eye ball, you only want to drill once, so invest in a template. This will help you establish and accurate alignment to drill clean and uniform holes for all your cabinets.

The standard drill bit size for installing cabinet hardware is 3/16th of an inch. Still, it's best to check what your chosen hardware requires. A tip when drilling holes is to always drill through the front of the cabinet. Drilling from them back can splinter the wood on the cabinet front. Now, just screw the hardware into place. That’s it. Your kitchen cabinets are now complete and best of all, you install them all yourself.