Put Your Cabinet Hardware to Work for You and Get the Most Out of Your Kitchen Experience

Posted Mon, 02/08/2010 - 17:15 by The Hardware Guy

In many homes, the kitchen is the most used room in the house. It serves as a cooking place, eatery, and gathering place. The kitchen is a wonderfully utilitarian room, but it is also one that can reflective of your home’s – and your own – personality and style. Your choice of everything, from paint and appliances to cabinets and the hardware that operates them, helps add form and function to your kitchen. Cabinet hardware is often an overlooked detail, but it is a detail that can tremendously improve your kitchen experience.

For Function

It is important that you select top quality hardware for your cabinets for several reasons: you want your cabinets to work optimally. You have paid for them, stained them, and filled them – now you want to be able to access them as easily and conveniently as possible. Here is a look at what you will need:

Drawer Slides: These help the drawers of your cabinets slide out smoothly, carry the appropriate load, close softly and smoothly, and preserve the quality of your cabinets and drawers. There are a lot of different types of slides, so make sure you get the right lengths and capacities.

Hinges: As with slides, there is a tremendous amount of variety with hinges. You can find:

Wrap-Around: Full wrap-around hinges have frame wings that wrap three sides of the frame and attach to the inside edge of the cabinet. Partial wrap-around hinges have wings that wrap two sides of the cabinet frame and screw to the edge. These are fairly utilitarian looking, which works well in some decors.

Face Frame or Semi-Concealed: With these, the frame wing is visible on the cabinet frame when the door is closed. When open, the door wing is concealed. These are more decorative in nature.

Surface Mount: Here, both wings of the hinge are mounted on the outside of the door and frame. These can be quite decorative, depending on your selection.

Inset: The wing attached to the frame is visible when the cabinet door is shut, while the wing on the door is hidden.

Overlay: With overlay hinges, the frame wing wraps the frame on two sides. The door can overlap the frame this way.

Reverse Bevel: Like the overlay hinges, the frame wing wraps two sides of the frame and the door can overlap. These can be used with doors that have a sloping or beveled mounting edge.

Flush/Full Inset: Here the hinges are concealed. The frame and door wings are mounted on the inside of the cabinet.

The one you select is largely a matter of preference and what will work best with your particular cabinets.

For Form

Cabinet pulls and knobs are a great way to add personality and style to your kitchen. You can find ones that are classic, contemporary, fun, unique, eclectic, child-friendly, bright, sedate, intricate, simple – the range is astonishing, and no matter what type of décor you have, you can find great hardware to complement your kitchen and add a bit of fun or elegance.

The key here is to look for quality made products; again, you don’t want to have to continually replace your pulls or knobs or damage your cabinets’ finishes. But it's important to choose products that you love and that make you want to spend more time in your kitchen. This is the perfect way to express your style, personality, and sense of fun, daring, elegance, humor, or whatever else makes you happy and comfortable.

This is exactly what your kitchen should do: make you happy and comfortable. To ensure that it does, make sure your hardware is of the same great quality as your cabinets so everything performs beautifully and looks wonderful.

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