Picking out the perfect hardware for your new kitchen cabinets can sometimes feel a little overwhelming, especially if you don’t know where to start. We have had our fair share of meetings with customers to help them chose the right hardware for their new home and whether its the kitchen, laundry room, study, or your closet we have helped homeowners find the perfect decorative hardware for their space. So, what are some things that you should do before starting your search?
- Find Inspiration Get on Pinterest, Houzz, or Instagram and save photos of different kitchens that you love or go through the photos that inspired the design of your kitchen. Look at the hardware they have on their cabinets, are the knobs, pulls, cup pulls or a mix of the three? What is the finish of the hardware? Do you like having two pulls on one drawer? What about cup pulls over bar pulls? Having these photos saved on the boards that you can create on each platform helps you have a reference of what you like while you’re in front of display boards at the showroom. One creative homeowner made a design board by pasting the items* that she had in each room into a Word document and printed each room out that she needed hardware for.
- Finish Knowing the style of decorative hardware and what finish you are looking for can help you significantly narrow down your options. There can be a lot of different finishes to consider but even just taking one or two out of your options can be helpful. Do you want the finish of your hardware to match the appliances and faucets? They don’t have to match, but it is a good thing to keep in mind since you don’t want two finishes that are going to clash with each other. Your cabinets can be more like furniture with their own style outside of the appliances. If you have a sample of your cabinet color bring it into the meeting with you so that you can hold different hardware options up to it.
- Cabinet Design One thing that doesn’t always seem to be on customers’ minds is the size of their cabinet drawers. There are some drawers that will not fit pulls and can only use a knob while others might be so large that they either need two medium-sized pulls or one long pull.
- Appliances If you are choosing to have cabinet panels over your appliances in the kitchen you should first pick out your appliance pull. We recommend finding your appliance pull first because you might have your heart style on a hardware set that doesn’t have a matching pull for the appliance panels.
- Price Keep your budget in mind and talk with your designer or whoever is working with you so that they can guide you towards the hardware that works with your unique price range. It’s also good to know that if you spend less money on one or two rooms you will be able to splurge on nicer hardware for another room.
*The items she included in her photographs were her flooring, backsplash, the color of the walls, light fixtures, appliance finishes, and main things she planned to decorate the space with.