DIY - Replacing Kitchen Cabinet Handles

It is common for most Singaporean household to have top hung and bottom cabinets installed in the kitchen for the purpose of storing kitchenware. One common issue I see is the tarnished kitchen handles after living in the house for some time.

This could be a result of various reasons such as the the high moisture environment in the kitchen and wear and tear of the protective coating overtime. If your ID had initially use plastic handles when designing your house, good for you! You can stop read and close this window. 

I kid, please read on! You'll never know when you might need this information. So I had this issue in my home and I went to Ikea hoping to get a replacement but sadly, they do not sell any handles that has the same length as mine. I eventually sourced this from a aliexpress. This is how it looks like.

It was easy to determine the correct length of the handle that you need for your cabinet. All you have to do is to remove one of the existing handles and measure the screwhole-to-screwhole length before placing your order. They have a wide selection for you to choice from and I believe the lengths are all standardized and widely used for various cabinet designs.

One important point to take note when placing your order is the length of the screws. By default, they will give out two 22mm long screws for each handle. My cabinet was only slightly thicker than 18mm so I went with the default screw length. Incase if your cabinet doors are thicker or slimmer, you can request for a different screw length.

Time for installation. I had these cabinets for 20 years and the rust/corrosion on the handles were severe. Attempt to unscrew the handles using regular screw driver was very tedious because of the corroded screws. After a few tries, I decided to switch to using an electric drill to unscrew the handles. The electric drill that I used have a hammering effect which helps to break the torque required to unscrew the screw. (you can hear the clicking sound from the video below, a little technical here...engineers would know what I'm saying)

Repeat this 36 times(the total number of handles I have) and you are done with this short DIY project. Simple but it brings much satisfaction to your living place.

Material List

1) Kitchen Cabinet handles

 

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