Cabinet hardware can serve as an easy and economic tool in updating your kitchen. Let’s face it, home improvement projects are expensive, time-consuming, and more often than not, stressful. If you need to quickly change your indoor scenery, changing out hardware may be the convenient solution. There are a few guidelines one should keep in mind when changing the hardware of existing cabinets or dressers.
Cabinet Hardware Dimensions
You’ll need to confirm certain key measurements. If you will be replacing any handles or pulls, it is absolutely essential that you measure the spread between the two screw holes. This measurement is referred to as the center to center (C-C) dimension, boring size, hole distance, or hole drilling dimension. The most common C-C dimensions of pulls are 3” (76MM), 3 ½” (89MM), 3 ¾” (96MM), and 5” (128MM).
On occasion, homeowners will discover that there are a limited number of drawer pulls on the market that will accommodate their existing cabinets’ hole drilling measurements. This circumstance most often arises in the case of older cabinets that may have had custom or oddball hardware installed. More often than not, you will be able to find one or two options, but having so few hardware choices when considerations of style and finish are also at play can lead to a frustrating dead-end. If you find yourself in this situation, we recommend utilizing back plate sets to make installing your new hardware a lot easier! Back plates will allow you to cover the pre-existing holes in your doors or drawers with a decorative hardware piece that matches in style and finish with the selected cabinet pull. Your project may become more time consuming than originally planned since you’ll need to re-drill the holes on your doors or drawers, but this sure beats installing new kitchen cabinets if a remodel is not in the budget.
Cabinet Hardware Style
If you want to give new life to those doors and drawers with cabinet hardware, the key is to find something different that is still in keeping with the style and color or finish of the relevant doors and drawer fronts.
Also, keep in mind that you want your new decorative hardware to stand out and highlight other coordinating accents in the home. Homeowners often make the mistake of trying to “match” other fixtures and pieces in a given room. This goal is almost impossible to accomplish, especially in the instance when you are not doing a full renovation. Let your cabinet hardware catch the eye and give your space a new personality, but do not get bogged down in trying to perfectly match your new hardware with other accents in your home. Sure, you probably have a soft spot in your heart for those drawer pulls on grandma’s dresser, but there’s no point to getting a face lift if you still look old after the procedure is done!
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