Remodeling 101: How Kitchen Edge Pulls Changed My Life

How do you possibly pick the perfect kitchen pull among endless options? In my case, my husband finally made me pull the trigger.

Six months ago our remodeled kitchen was complete enough for us to start using it—minus any knobs or pulls. Things actually worked quite well without these details, but not without daily irritations: Every time my husband tried to open a drawer, his fingers would get stuck, an especially bothersome hazard when emptying the dishwasher (I confess: a chore he tackles more often than I do). Even our five-year-old son developed his own opening technique, wrapping his little fingers around each drawer side. Our youngest, still a toddler, never cracked the code—and so our lack of hardware actually worked as a safety measure. Happy with the kitchen’s streamlined look, I would have left things as is–if it weren’t for one very annoyed husband. It was time to make a decision.

At first I set my sights on leather pulls by Spinneybeck, until I did the math: 30 pulls added up to $700-plus. And given our already exhausted renovation budget, there was no room to play. So I moved on to more reasonable alternatives, searching high and low, but my indecisiveness (and pickiness) kept getting in the way. As the search went on, I also became more and more hesitant to drill permanent holes in our drawers. And then I discovered edge pulls.

Above: Installed at the top or bottom of each cabinet and drawer, edge pulls present a clean front (and don’t require any exposed holes). Better yet, I discovered two versions that I like, one of them very affordable. Photograph by Matthew Williams from Remodelista: A Manual for the Considered Home.