Hardware, and the holes you cannot take back

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.

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

Seeing something not on this list? Browse cabinets problems by symptom →

How cabinet hardware installation actually works

1. 1

   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 forBuying soft-close hinges before establishing the overlay. Hinges are sold per overlay, and the wrong ones cannot be adjusted into being right.

2. 2

   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 forA new pull whose spacing is close but not identical. Two holes an inch apart read as worse than one plugged hole.

3. 3

   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 forPositions marked by eye. Handles a few millimetres out of line read as wrong across a run.

4. 4

   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 forA drill entering from the back "to hide the tear-out". The hole then exits on the visible face, where any misalignment lands.

5. 5

   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 forA 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.

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 →

If the number is the problem, here are the ways people pay for it →