What Size Handles Should I Use?
Handle size is part proportion, part practicality. The usual guide is that a handle should span roughly one third of the drawer width. It is not a rule, but it is a good place to start when nothing else is telling you what to do.
A rough guide by drawer width
- Drawers up to 600mm generally suit a 128mm handle
- Drawers from 600mm to 900mm usually want 192mm or larger
- Very wide drawers either take a long handle or two shorter ones set apart
On a very wide drawer, two handles are often the better answer. A single handle in the centre of a 1200mm drawer will pull unevenly, and over time that tells on the runners.
Weight matters as much as width
A deep pot drawer loaded with cast iron behaves differently to a shallow cutlery drawer of the same width. If a drawer is heavy, size up. The extra length gives more room for the hand and spreads the pull across both fixings rather than one.
Where the OK.1 sits
The OK.1 D Handle comes in 128mm, 192mm and 224mm hole centres, which covers most standard cabinetry. It is a clean rectangular pull with a squared profile, in solid oak or walnut.
If you need to go longer, the OK.5 Moonbeam runs to 452mm, which suits full height wardrobe doors and oversized drawers.
One thing people get wrong
Hole centres are the distance between the screw holes, not the length of the handle. A 128mm handle is longer than 128mm overall. If you are replacing existing hardware, measure the hole centres and match that, and you will avoid drilling new holes entirely.
Still unsure? Send us the drawer widths and we will tell you what we would use.
