Cabinets · Service

Hardware, and the holes you cannot take back

Knobs, pulls, hinges and soft-close conversions. A small job with one unforgiving property: every mistake is a hole in a door you were planning to keep.

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In short

What is cabinet hardware installation?

Cabinet hardware installation covers fitting knobs and pulls to doors and drawer fronts, and replacing the hinges and drawer slides behind them — most often to add soft-close to a kitchen that does not have it. It is a short job. Two things decide whether it goes well, and both are settled before anyone picks up a drill: whether the hardware is compatible with what your cabinets already have, and whether the holes land in the same place on every door.

Triggers

Signs you need cabinet hardware installation

Doors and drawers that slam, on a kitchen you otherwise like
Handles that are loose, dated, or a finish that no longer matches taps and appliances
Existing pulls whose screws are at one spacing and replacements you like at another
Concealed hinges that no longer hold adjustment, or doors that sit crooked after years of use
Drawers that stick or drop on tired side-mount slides you want upgraded to soft-close
Undrilled doors or drawer fronts after a paint or refinish job that still need knobs or pulls
A mix of knobs and pulls from past partial upgrades that never quite lined up as a set
Soft-close dampers that clip on some doors but leave the rest of the kitchen slamming

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The job

How cabinet hardware installation actually works

Identify what you actually have before buying anything

Three facts govern everything: hinge type (concealed cup, wrap-around, or exposed butt), overlay — how far the door sits over the opening — and, for drawers, whether the slides are side-mounted or undermount. Photographs of an open door and a removed drawer answer all three.

Watch for: Buying soft-close hinges before establishing the overlay. Hinges are sold per overlay, and the wrong ones cannot be adjusted into being right.
Measure the existing hole spacing on pulls

Pulls are fixed by two screws at a fixed centre-to-centre distance. Like for like is trivial; a different spacing means the old holes are now in the wrong place and visible. Measure between the centres before you shop, not after.

Watch for: A new pull whose spacing is close but not identical. Two holes an inch apart read as worse than one plugged hole.
Set positions with a jig, one door at a time

The professional method is a template clamped to each door so every hole lands identically — same distance from the edge, same height, every door in the run. On tall drawer banks, pulls set to a consistent height across the run often look better than pulls centred on each front.

Watch for: Positions marked by eye. Handles a few millimetres out of line read as wrong across a run.
Drill from the face, with backing behind the exit

Drilling through a door front tears out on the back face as the bit breaks through, and scrap timber clamped behind the exit prevents it. On thermofoil and laminate the entry side is fragile too, and the film chips at the rim.

Watch for: A drill entering from the back "to hide the tear-out". The hole then exits on the visible face, where any misalignment lands.
Fit hinges and slides, then adjust the whole run together

Soft-close conversion is either swapping concealed hinges for soft-close equivalents of the same overlay, or clipping dampers onto the hinges you have. Both are quick. Drawer slides are the harder half — undermount slides need particular box dimensions and a notch or groove, so on old drawers it can become a new drawer box.

Watch for: A price for "soft-close drawers" agreed before anyone has taken a drawer out and measured the box. That is where a small job quietly becomes joinery.

Money

What does cabinet hardware installation cost?

Hardware fitting is usually priced per door and drawer or per hole, against a minimum call-out, so doing the whole kitchen in one visit is what makes it worth booking. On soft-close conversions the hinges and slides themselves are typically the larger part of the bill. See the cabinets cost guide.

See the full cabinet hardware installation cost guide — by material, size and region →

Straight answer

When cabinet hardware installation is the wrong call

Everyone else ranking for this is paid when you say yes. Here's when you shouldn't.

You are refacing or replacing the doors within the year. New fronts arrive undrilled and new hinges come with them. Drilling doors you are about to skip is the clearest example of paying twice.
The drawers stick because the boxes are failing, not the runners. A drawer whose sides have opened at the joints or whose bottom has dropped will not be rescued by new slides. Rebuild the box first.
The kitchen is being painted or refinished shortly. Doors come off for finishing anyway and the handles come off with them. Sequence hardware after the finish and you pay for the removal once.
You want a different pull spacing on doors with a delicate finish. On stained wood, thermofoil or high-gloss fronts, filling old holes invisibly is difficult and sometimes not achievable. Either keep the spacing, or accept that the fronts are what needs replacing.
You are hoping soft-close hinges will fix doors that sit crooked. Soft-close changes how a door stops, not where it hangs. A door out of line is an adjustment, a failed fixing or a racked box, and new hinges inherit whichever it is.

Your options

Types of cabinet hardware installation

Knobs, pulls and handles

The product choice itself — finishes, sizes and how spacing works.

Soft-close upgrade or new cabinets

The comparison worth running before you spend on hardware for an old kitchen.

Overlay, inset and hinge terminology

Full overlay, partial overlay, inset and face frame — what a hardware listing assumes you know.

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Straight answer

Can I do this myself?

The irreversibility is the point of this job: a hole in the wrong place cannot be undone, only disguised. If you are unsure of the position, make a jig and test it on the inside face of a door.

Reasonable to DIY

Replacing knobs and pulls like for like at the existing spacing
Clip-on soft-close dampers that fit existing concealed hinges without drilling
Swapping concealed cup hinges for soft-close hinges of the same overlay, where the cup and plate positions match
Adjusting the new hinges so the reveals line up — every concealed hinge adjusts in three directions

Call a licensed pro

Drilling a full kitchen of previously undrilled doors, where every hole has to match every other one and there is no second attempt
Any change of pull spacing that leaves old holes to be filled on a stained, gloss or thermofoil front
Converting side-mounted drawers to undermount slides, which routinely turns into new drawer boxes
Fitting hardware to inset doors, where a hole near an edge can split the stile

Before you sign

What to check when hiring for cabinet hardware installation

Do you work to a jig, and can I see it?

The question that separates a consistent run from individually-placed handles. Anyone who does this regularly owns a template.
Have you confirmed the overlay and hinge type before ordering?

Hinges are sold per overlay and are not adjustable between overlays. Wrong ones turn one visit into a return trip and a restocking argument.
If the pull spacing changes, how will the old holes be dealt with?

The answer should be specific to your finish. "We will fill them" is not an answer on stained wood or thermofoil.
Have you measured a drawer box before quoting for soft-close drawers?

Undermount slides impose real dimensional requirements on the box. Without the measurement, the quote is a guess that only breaks one way.

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Local pros

Cabinet Hardware Installation near you

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Related work

Often done at the same time

Cabinet Repair

Failed fixings, dragging drawers and doors out of line

Cabinet Organization Systems

The other retrofit — what goes inside the boxes

Cabinet Painting

Sequence the finish before the hardware, not after

Cabinet Door Replacement

When new fronts make the hole question disappear

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FAQ

Cabinet Hardware Installation — questions people ask

Still have a question? Talk to our team →

Can I add soft-close to my existing cabinets?

Usually yes for doors, sometimes for drawers. If your doors run on concealed cup hinges, you can swap them for soft-close hinges of the same overlay or clip dampers onto the hinges you have — both quick, neither needing new holes. Drawers are less predictable: side-mounted slides can often be swapped for soft-close side mounts, but undermount slides impose dimensions old drawer boxes frequently do not meet. Exposed butt hinges generally cannot be converted at all.

What is the standard spacing for cabinet pulls?

There is no single standard, which is why the question matters. Pulls are specified by centre-to-centre distance, and several common spacings are close enough to be mistaken at a glance. Measure between the centres of the two existing screws and shop to that number. If you want a spacing you cannot match, the real decision is whether you can live with filled holes.

Where should handles go on cabinet doors and drawers?

Convention puts door pulls on the opening side — vertical on wall cabinets, horizontal near the top rail on base cabinets — so they fall to hand, with drawer pulls centred. The convention worth breaking is on a tall drawer bank, where centring each pull individually makes them step down at uneven intervals. Whatever you choose, the property that matters is that it is the same on every unit.

Do I need a professional to fit cabinet hardware?

For a like-for-like swap, no — this is one of the simplest jobs in a house. Hiring makes sense in two situations: a kitchen of undrilled doors where dozens of holes have to agree with each other and no mistake can be corrected, and any job changing the pull spacing on a finish that will not hide a filled hole. Nearly everything ranking for this query sells hardware, so it is worth hearing from somewhere that does not that most of it is a Saturday.

Will new hinges fix doors that do not close properly?

Only if the hinges themselves are the fault — worn, bent, or a spring that has given up. Far more often the door is reporting a fixing that has lost its grip in the board, a racked cabinet or a warped door. New hinges driven into the same failed screw holes reproduce the problem immediately, so the fixings have to be rebuilt first whatever hardware goes back on.