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Kitchen and Bathroom Remodeling Resources
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Kitchen & Bathroom Cabinet Pulls & Knobs
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Even the most beautiful or the most expensive kitchen and bath cabinets won’t be worth much if you can’t get into them. That’s where the cabinet knob hardware comes in. But it doesn’t have just a practical value. Regarded as the jewelry of the cabinets, it’s a detail that can make a strong statement.

Decorative cabinet knobs for your kitchen or bathroom, or any room in your house, can brighten the entire living space and bring your furniture to life. The special touches in decorating, such as picking out the perfect cabinet knobs or choosing the most fitting painted border, are the small details that make a world of difference in your environment. Today, thank goodness, we are no longer limited to our local hardware stores and sales catalogues to find the perfect decorating accessories. With the convenience of the World Wide Web, you can find hundreds of online stores specializing in cabinet knobs alone.

Cabinet knobs are available in a huge array of colors, shapes, styles, and designs. Whether your style is traditional, eclectic, modern or classic, or whether you prefer jeweled, rock, hand-painted, tiled, ceramic or sparkly dragonflies, you can find exactly what you’re looking for. With just a few clicks of the mouse you can find everything from unique, hand painted knobs imported straight from small villages in India, to custom knobs created for you from swatches of your paint and fabric.

When choosing knobs, the most important factors are: color and style. Make sure that your knobs will complement the themes and colors found in your home. Don’t fall in love with an art deco knob if your bathroom is decorated in a country motif! It is just as important to make sure that your chosen knobs compliment the cabinet and its particular finish and feel. Also make sure the knobs you have chosen are the correct size for the piece you are adding it to and that the knobs are placed in perfect symmetry. There is nothing wonderful about off-center knobs. It may draw attention, but not the kind of attention you are looking for!

Are you a little unsure about which style of knob you should choose for your bathroom or kitchen? Once you start looking you may be overwhelmed with the diversity in choices. Before you begin, know what basic style you are drawn to. After that, the sky is the limit!

Modern

If modern is your motif, think contemporary, post modern and retro. You can choose from a wide variety of metallics and high gloss finishes within contemporary designs, go for bold with unique shapes and sizes from the post modern era, or enjoy the sleek and satin metal finishes of retro.

Traditional

Traditional choices include antique, country, mission, colonial, old world and classical classic. Antique knobs offer everything from bronze mushroom styles to antique hammered pewter. Charming country styles offer everything from white and colored porcelain, to wooden knobs of all shapes and sizes. If you’re thinking ‘arts and crafts’, look for mission style knobs. If you are dreaming of twisted wrought iron or pewter swirls then search for a colonial period look or old world style. For everything in between, check out the traditional classic look.

Novelty Knobs

Themes can include everything from nautical, transportation, nature and culturally enlightened! Novelty knobs are a great way to add a personal touch and keep with a decorating theme. For your kitchen your can choose anything from garden fruits, to hummingbirds. For the bathroom aquatic themes are popular, utilizing shells, sea creatures and water inspired designs.

Specialty Knobs

In the world of design, there are a plethora of specialty knobs to choose from. From handcrafted, hand painted, jeweled, eclectic and artistic inspired creations, the choices are endless.

No matter what your style or preference, with a little research you are sure to find something special to suit your individual style!

Kitchen and Bathroom Remodeling Tips.

You’ll find kitchen and bath hardware in all different kinds of materials and finishes, from brushed chrome to plastic to ceramic to glass to forged iron, and in all shapes and sizes. You’ll want to decide if you want your pulls to blend in with the cabinets or become a decorative accent. Or you can make them virtually disappear: You can select a touch-and-release style or doors that hang slightly below the cabinet so that all you do is pull on the lower edge to open them.

Practically speaking, make sure your choice is to your taste and will last for many years to come:

• Doesn’t pinch your fingers
• Attaches firmly to the cabinet
• Is in proportion with the size of the cabinet doors
• Is easy to grasp, especially if located above the refrigerator or vent hood

Or we’re doing a glaze on top of a stain. Maybe a natural maple door with a light brown glaze as an accent. The glaze outlines the shapes to give a worn country look. Red birch is also popular because of the availability of the trees here in New England. It gives a traditional look, and it’s a wood that looks like natural cherry but doesn’t darken and mellow. Traditional-style hardware would be brass or the next new thing—pewter. We’re also using off-white paint on cabinets or shades of green and burgundy. Large crown moulding tops it off.

The contemporary look is coming back. The trend is toward a softer, warmer contemporary—not as glossy as the high shine of the ’80s. Our contemporary kitchens will have a smaller moulding than the traditional kitchens—something like a 1.5-inch, double bull-nose moulding to give a linear look. Then we’ll use a Shaker door in cherry with a clear finish and a flat panel and frame around the door. We have vertical nickel handles that run from 8 inches to 30 inches from the top to the bottom of the door. We can take a simple looking door and put that hardware on it and it makes a contemporary statement, but not a shiny or industrial one. It’s still sleek but warmer.

People want more natural light in their kitchens, so they’re taking down walls to put in bigger windows, and there go the cabinets. We’re seeing this more, particularly along the coast where they want the view. To make up for the lost storage space, we’re putting more accessories in drawers and using partitions in deep drawers to store individual plates.

Depending on the hardware, you can completely change the look of the cabinets. Stainless steel hardware works well with modern. You can have different finishes on the hardware, ranging from rust to black. Hardware is very popular because it’s a way to make the kitchen unique. There are whimsical choices—a lot of tubular and curved handles. In a more contemporary streamlined look, you’ll see chrome, brushed chrome, and stainless steel. A traditional kitchen might have brass knobs.

In mouldings, people are going for subdued. Moulding that’s a double bull nose doesn’t designate your cabinets to any real style. They’re not looking to make a statement with their mouldings and trim. With some cabinets, it’s gone entirely.

Sally Ann Sullivan, Certified Kitchen Designer
Showcase Kitchens and Baths
Tulsa, Oklahoma

www.kitchenandbathshowcase.com

Traditional kitchens here are based on the style of the home. And the popular style now is French country. We’ll do a rub-through for a finish. It leaves a little color in the crevices to look like the piece was once painted or so old that it has dust in the corners. We call it the restoration look. Traditional is home-and-hearth—not country but country estate. We might do special pairs of cabinet doors—left and right arched doors with very unobtrusive wood knobs in the same color as the cabinet finish or a forged iron knob for a casual effect or forged brass for a furniture feel. We’re doing furniture feet on the cabinets and extensive mouldings—rope, dentil, fluting, and others that can cost up to 25 percent of the budget.

Contemporary is a soft contemporary: Shaker style with a recessed panel door. The finish is very smooth, with no distressing and it relies on the wood grain itself to carry the door. We use not a clear stain but a light one. When mixed with slab doors, the grain runs the same way on doors and drawers. It’s a clean, uncluttered look. The hardware is completely different from traditional. It’s part of the artistic statement. We’re seeing stainless steel pulls and touch-and-release latches. Contemporary mouldings are minimal and uncluttered. And we’re seeing more glass doors in soft contemporary: austral glass, an art glass that you can’t quite see through; ribbed glass that’s like corduroy; stainless inserts that give the feel of glass; colored glass; brushed metallic laminate; silver dot laminate; and hammered copper.

People have stopped looking at just the fronts of cabinets. They want all these fabulous interior accessories. Plain rollout shelves left with the Model T. Now the interiors are organized for plates and pots and pans in heavy-duty rollouts. Any base cabinet with a door is expected to have rollout shelves. Recycle centers are also in big demand. Appliance garages don’t use tambour doors any more but doors that pull out flat and then push in at the top.
 

John Rowland
Co-owner
Palm Bay Kitchens & Baths
Naples, Florida

www.palmbaykitchens.com

Traditional is by far the most popular look here. On the east coast of Florida, they do more contemporary. A traditional kitchen will have a raised panel, miter-corner door. We’re leaning toward glazed finishes that accent the form of the door. A dark brown mocha on top of a medium-tone maple will give a warm, cozy look. The white and pickled cabinets of southern Florida are out.

The Old World look has really caught on in our area, with lots of woodcarvings and elaborate hardware. There’s a lot more detail and more architectural treatments than we’ve seen before. People want to make more of a statement. We’re seeing a lot of wood accenting and detailing. There are a lot of different choices. By far the most popular are carved wood pieces and architectural woodcarvings: corbels around a wood hood, crown mouldings with hand-carved designs, carvings above the fridge on a blank panel, French curves. This look is in because we had tropical for so long that people got tired of it. We’re doing white kitchens on remodeling jobs. They’ve usually decided to remodel in the first place because the current space is too small and dark so they want to open it up with a lighter look. We see this particularly in beach condos where they want the beachfront look.

In the last 10 years there has been a huge change in the kitchen industry with an explosion of different choices, looks, and products. In particular, companies are coming out with more decorative hardware. Hardware has gotten to be a more difficult choice. People spend as much time picking out hardware as they do the main cabinets. Door styles and colors are more limited, but with hardware you can get many different looks. Sleek contemporary poles or wrought iron can be put on traditional cabinets; old rust finishes are popular.
 

Pat Allen
Co-owner
Rainier Cabinetry & Design
Seattle, Washington

www.rainiercabinetry.com

If you’re looking for authenticity, then you should aim for the door styles, finishes, and trim to work together. But if you’re looking for a more casual look, then you can mix the styles a bit. Trends are a bit more toward the authentic and formal than in the past.

Popular products include pullout tables, fancier cabinet trims, recycle stations, and unusual colors and finishes. The pullout table extends 5 feet from the cabinets and folds back up into it. You can use whatever wood top you want. We’ve installed it coming off the end of an island or out the back side of a peninsula in the dining area. It looks like a regular cabinet. Pullout recycle areas are also very important in the Seattle area. We install pullout baskets and bins that can be removed for emptying. We’re installing these in lieu of a trash compactor; people are more concerned about recycling than smashing their trash.

Glazing is popular now. It was popular in the ’50s and ’60s when it was called antiquing. We’ll do a cherry with a black glaze; or maple or pine with a light or dark glaze over a light stain. We can do the glaze over a natural wood or one stained a sunshine color. A darker glaze gives an older look. We’re also doing cottage finishes—painted finishes that have been rubbed off and banged up to appear worn. It’s popular with women but the men don’t understand why you’d pay for something to look old and beat up! Taupes and sages are popular colors.
 

Ryan Day
Manager
House of Cabinetry
Winfield, Kansas

www.houseofcabinetry.com

Geographic location will be a factor in hardware selection. The magazines show a lot of contemporary, which is not what we’re doing around here. We’re doing quite a bit of brass and porcelain for traditional and country kitchens. We’re doing more antique brass than the polished. We haven’t sold any of the colored glass knobs, though we’re doing some brushed chrome because the stainless steel appliances have come back. The look is nothing fancy, just your basic knob or pull.

Some people who’ve had knobs before say they don’t want them in their next kitchen because they catch their clothes on them, so they’ll go with pulls instead. We have a hands-on display in the showroom that lets people make sure they can get their hands around the knob—that there’s enough clearance between the face of the cabinet and the part of the knob that you grab.

Adjustable hinges are so critical, especially in the full-overlay style where the doors and drawers are butted together. The three-way adjustable hinge lets you line up the drawers and doors so that everything hangs all in line. The very last thing we do, which is very critical in the full overlay design, is make sure everything is adjusted to line up properly.