White Kitchen Cabinets With Polished Nickel Hardware

As promised, here is a post about kitchen hardware. In this case, I'm going to focus on the cabinet hardware that would be appropriate for a classic white kitchen. If you've ever gone out to select knobs or handles for your cabinet, you will have discovered that this is an extremely broad topic, however, I hope I am able to simplify the process, somewhat.  Ya know, the problem in this country is there is just too much choice; don't you think? If someone could narrow it down to the top 25 options, wouldn't that help?

First of all, there is a choice between knobs and handles or JUST handles. Here is a classic white kitchen that uses only handles.

That shor is pretty, however, my preference is to use a combination of knobs and handles because it provides variety.

Here is a beautiful example of a kitchen I just found recently done by the team of architect Allan Greenberg and designer Elissa Cullman of Houston, TX.

architect Allan Greenberg and designer Elissa Cullman

I do prefer nickel, pewter or silver for white kitchens. There are also a lot of glass styles including mercury glass knobs. And I never would've believed it, but brass is making a comeback. Wow! Remember that shiny brass that we thought was so cool in the 80's? And then sometime circa 1995, we thought, "what WERE we thinking?" Well, it's back, only this time, they took that fake lacquer off so that the brass can age gracefully and naturally.  It still makes me nervous, so I think I'll stick to my favorite for a classic white kitchen which is polished nickel. Nickel is so wonderful, because it's silvery, but also warm.

The question I am frequently asked is: "Does the hardware have to match the faucet and the light fixture metal and do all the cabinets have to have the same handle and/or knob?"

The short answer, is "No, not always." In fact, I think it's a lot more interesting to mix both warm and cool metals in the same room, but every situation is different.

So, what I like to do is start with the big pieces such as the faucets. In our Bronxville classic white kitchen, we are doing two faucets from Perrin and Rowe in polished nickel. This is my very fave kitchen faucet by Perrin & Rowe. It also comes with blade handles, but my client preferred this model.

That truly is a beauty!

Then, the chandeliers and sconces will be in antique gold. I decided on the gold because it will add a touch of warmth which will be welcoming in the largely white kitchen.

The hood is antique nickel.

Custom Nickel Hood by Texas Lightsmith.

Then, I decided on these really cool polished nickel handles for the drawers. This is what we chose. I love it because  it reminds me of

fine old silverware from a bygone era. These are all from myknobs.com

This handle is nearly 6″ and then there is an 8″ handle which we will use for a few things like the dishwasher and mini fridges. We are using the heavy-duty 15″ handle for the big fridge and freezer. here's a detail of that.

My client wanted glass knobs and I love them too, but I felt that most of them are too "Depression Era." So, I compromised and found these vintage looking cut glass and polished nickel knobs from Pottery Barn. I know… PB. But, sometimes they have just the right thing and we are not such snobs that everything has to come from a high-end source.

I really love the way, they subtly mimic the grooves in the handles without being all matchy matchy, as we say.

So, that's everything but the built-in glass cabinet and I wanted to give it its very own special identity that was unmistakably French. One wonderful source that I have often used is Etsy. I have ordered from many, many vendors on there, everything from social media icons to my pretty turquoise lamp. And EVERYONE on there is super, super nice. They are the happiest, nicest people ever! And quite frankly, most of them do not charge ENOUGH for what they are selling. (but I'm not going to tell them that).

As an aside, please check out my beautiful friend Mary Zank's shop on Etsy! Not only is she super nice, (of course, she's an Etsy vendor!) but she's also this amazing ballerina! And she hand makes these beautiful artisan handbags, jewelry and scarfs— very talented girl!

Back to our hardware. I found a wonderful source for vintage French hardware handles and the vendor, Leslie Saar from Fairy Home is going to paint them a creamy white to coordinate with our creamy white cabinets.  The handles are for the drawers. Then, for the four doors. Ahhh… the doors. In our inspiration kitchen, the doors have Cremone  bolts, also painted white. Love it!

Cremone, sounds like an Italian dessert, huh? I'm sure you've seen them on French doors and they are making a come back. The look is wonderful, however for a kitchen door that's going to be opened frequently, it would be a pain in the arse, so I thought that what I would do to make the doors extra special is to have a long narrow escutcheon backplate with a knob.

Escutcheon backplate? haha! It's one of those words that we've heard, but we don't really know what it is. Right? It's because they don't really do them anymore, but what is old is new again. I found some wonderful ones at Nicole Maleine Antiques  and they are going to send them to Leslie and she is going to paint them to match the handles. Then, for the knobs, I thought that a simple creamy white porcelain knob like this would look cool, but then I decided that I would really prefer to see some  glass, so here's the look, not to scale of course.

Tres pretty, I think!

For our free-standing piece under the two new Palladian Windows, (BTW, they just put in the window casing and it's looking absolutely wonderful) the hardware is already an antique brass, so that will tie in nicely with our light fixtures.

And that is our kitchen hardware for a classic white kitchen. Don't be afraid to mix it up a bit; there's so much out there and while some of this stuff is bloody expensive, not all of it is. You can often find wonderful deals on Etsy, Ebay and even Amazon. Here are some other wonderful sources for the old-standbys as well as some unique and interesting pieces.

http://myknobs.com

http://houseofantiquehardware.com

http://anthropologie.com

http://restorationhardware.com

http://urbanarchaelogy.com

for other posts about this kitchen please look here, here and here.

best wishes,

White Kitchen Cabinets With Polished Nickel Hardware

Source: https://laurelberninteriors.com/2013/12/12/kitchen-hardware-classic-white-kitchen/

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