Look closely….

Notice anything missing?

Look closer….

So, we’ve had knobs on our cabinet doors for months and months. But no drawer pulls. Why?? Well, because I’m cheap. It’s the only reason I’ve got.

About a year ago, I came across three packages of the cabinet knobs in the above pic on clearance at Target for 11 bucks per 10-pack.   That equaled thirty brushed nickel knobs for thirty three bucks. And thirty was more than enough knobs to cover every cabinet door in our house. Kitchen, bathrooms, laundry room. All cabinets. So, it was a go. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any drawer pulls available at the time (on clearance or otherwise), so we just installed the knobs and decided to buy drawer pulls somewhere else.  I looked for pulls at several places, but couldn’t justify spending at least four bucks a pop when we needed 21 of them.  I’m much too stingy. And I’m picky. Which, of course, meant that I only wanted the pricier pulls.

About 3 months later, I found a six-pack of these pulls on sale at Target for 11 bucks.  Less than two bucks a piece!! Score!  (Ignore the $8.74 sticker… I’ll explain that later)…

The pulls were simple, but had a little beefiness to them, which I really liked. I thought they would be perfect for the master bath since we have six drawers in there.  But then, for no rational reason at all, the package remained unopened in our cabinet for, oh, another 9 months. Ignored. Uninstalled.

So, color me excited when I discovered another package of these exact pulls on clearance at Target for 11 bucks just last week.  I figured that if I could just find one more package, then I could use that, plus this package plus our current package at home for our kitchen drawers.  We have fourteen drawers in there so that would leave four extra pulls to use for various other projects.   Then, I’d just worry about the master bath later.

I asked the sales associate if I could order an additional set of pulls online and he said yes, so I purchased my pulls and went home. I logged onto Target.com to order my final pack, only to discover that low-and-behold you CANNOT order them online.  Bummer.

So, I called another Target and spoke with an angel. She told me that not only did they have 2 packages (enough to finish both the kitchen and the master bath), they were on sale at that location for (you guessed it) $8.74!!!!  And I thought I got a great deal before!  To go the extra mile, she actually walked over to verify that they hadn’t already sold and she held them behind the guest service desk until I could get there. I love that girl. I wish I could remember her name because I would love to send her props to corporate.

So, I drove up there and picked them up.  After I arrived home, I began installation, which was a breeze thanks to this little gadget…

It’s a drawer template that comes in a set with a corner piece for installing knobs on cabinet doors.  They help to ensure that the holes are drilled in the same place on each drawer (or door).

All you do is line up your pull to determine which holes match up….

In my case, it was the center holes. Then, you measure and mark the middle of your drawer…

…line up the middle line on the template with the mark you just made…

And determine which row of holes are the closest to the middle of the drawer vertically.  Our shallower drawers are 5 1/2 inches high, so I chose the 2 1/2 inch row since that was closest to the middle…

The fact that it’s about 1/4″ off from the exact middle is undetectable to me.   It seems centered when you look at it.

Once I knew to choose the 2 1/2 inch row for our narrower drawers, I only had to measure the middle of the remaining drawers horizontally, since the template, once laid in place over the drawer, would dictate the same placement vertically each time…

Now, keep in mind that the row used on the template may need to change depending on the depth of the drawer. We had two depths of drawers in our kitchen, so for the deeper drawers (which were about 7″ high), I used the 3 1/2 inch row to keep the handles centered on the drawers.  It may also be useful to tape off the holes on the template that you aren’t using to help from accidentally marking the wrong ones.

Once you have your holes marked (my marks were pretty faint, so I tried to point them out for ya.)…

…drill your holes…

And install your knob…

I had 14 pulls to install in our kitchen, so I did everything in shifts. I measured and marked them all first, then went back and drilled holes, and finally installed my pulls. Doing it this way kept me from having to change my drill bit thirty times, which was nice.

And here’s our newly bedazzled kitchen…

It always amazes me how hardware on cabinetry makes the room feel so much more custom and cared for.   After I finished installing all the pulls, I stepped back and nearly busted with the feeling that the room felt so much more “us”.  It may sound silly, but it’s true.

All in all, the hardware (all of the knobs and pulls for the entire house) costed us around $75 (give or take).   Considering that most cheaper knobs run about $2 each and pulls about $4 a piece (which would have equalled at least $150 for the number of knobs and pulls we purchased), I think we did pretty good.   Sure, it took over a year to acquire said hardware, but I’m glad we waited.  We ended up with knobs and pulls that we love for half the cost, which is enough to put a smile on my face any day.  🙂