The kitchen is the most expensive place to customize both in terms of labor and financial cost.
The many kitchen hardware fittings must be carefully picked because they last for years.
Women typically handle kitchens and are more detail-oriented.
If elegance and beauty are valued over functionality, broken appliances will always interrupt dinner preparation, and a functional kitchen will feel too hard to prepare. The best fixtures should take into consideration both function and style to make your kitchen as friendly and inviting as possible.
Kitchen cabinets form a significant portion of the kitchen. Storage is key for a functional kitchen to run without a hitch and cabinets help to keep everything organized, neat and accessible.
Your cabinets can have bar pulls, t-bars, or knobs. The choice is yours and since you have chosen to have bar pulls, the size of the pulls is critical to achieving both function and style optimally.
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What size bar pulls should you choose for your kitchen cabinets?
There is no hard and fast rule that governs what size of bar pulls you should use. In fact, it is entirely up to you what size you would like to install provided they please you and function swimmingly.
Standard size cabinets and drawers
Storage space in the kitchen is organized into drawers and cabinets. Most cabinets are approximately 34 inches long while most drawers will be 30 inches wide.
The most common bar pull for these measurements is a 5-inch center-to-center pull. The handle can be longer or the same size, thus this is the screw hole distance.
Longer pulls beyond 7 inches may be harder to grasp than a 5-inch drawer pull since you have to hunt for the middle pull.
More than 7 inches of clearance may cause you to pull the drawer left or right. Functionality will be impaired. You can draw a visually lengthy bar. Longer handles are better, but 5 inches center to center is best.
Larger sizes of cabinets and drawers
As aforementioned, there is no rule that dictates the best size for your cabinet pulls, and rightly so because a larger drawer or a larger cabinet door does not equal a proportional increase in the size of bar pull.
In fact, unless the cabinet or drawer is twice the standard size then the bar pull does not need to change in size. However, consideration can be made since cabinets and drawers have a key difference.
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Cabinets
A larger cabinet may just need a slightly larger bar draw.
This is because cabinet door bar pulls do not carry the weight of the door or its contents, and they nonetheless work well despite having the same size as regular cabinet pulls (around five inches).
To match the cabinet door’s size and maintain proportionality, the handle can be longer.
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Drawers
Every time a drawer is drawn in or out, the bar pull supports the drawer and its contents.
If the drawer is large, it can keep bulky objects like crockery or food.
The typical five-inch bar pulls won’t work, and the size may not be the only modification. The bar pull may need to be thicker and heavier.
The heavier drawers require a seven-inch bar pull of denser material. The drawer could be longer and not just deeper. Though rare in the kitchen, larger kitchens could have wide drawers of over 60 inches.
Again, the bar pull should be able to accommodate the extra length to avoid drawers that open easily on one side than on the other.
In such a case you may consider having two bar pulls on either side to facilitate the opening and closing of exceptionally wide drawers smoothly.
Bar pull
This however forces you to have both hands free to open and close drawers which is almost annoying.
A better option is an appliance bar pull, which is merely inches shorter than the drawer from either side.
Bar pull and drawer will be the same size. The best large bar pull distributes the weight of the large drawer over its length and may be pulled easily with one hand.
The perfect handle center will be indicated by a hand imprint, aesthetic curvature, or design where your hand should go to open the drawer. You will barely notice the weight of the drawer if you install this kind of bar pull. You are free to close the drawer with your leg if you so wish.
Finally…
When choosing bar pulls, size is an important consideration but so is material, design, color, how they gel with other fixtures in the kitchen, and the installation.
Kitchen fixtures make up a significant portion of the aesthetic quality of kitchens so be sure to select carefully your bar pulls.
