If you’re getting ready to remodel your kitchen, how would you like to make decisions that not only make it look better now, but keep it looking better and easier to clean for months to come? Most people love this idea but wonder how they can do that while making simple decorating decisions. Well, the key is in the cooking selections you make.
Think about what you touch most often in your kitchen. Aside from appliances, it doesn’t get much more practical than the kitchen pull and knobs. You’re always pulling a kitchen pull or knob when you need to get into a drawer for cutlery or get into pantry cabinets to get the ingredients for a great meal. Sometimes, he even gets into these cabinets and drawers when he’s already preparing a meal, which means his hands are dirty, grimy, and spreading that dirt and grime to the kitchen pull or knob.
While it may not change your dirty-hand habits, you can change the way every handle and knob in the kitchen deals with your dirty hands. There are all sorts of materials that cabinet hardware is made of. Some of them deal better with dirt and grime than others. The more you know up front before you make a purchase, the better your chances of having great-looking cabinet hardware for a long time.
do your research
The first thing to do is really get to know the materials that go into the kitchen pull or cabinet knob you are considering buying. You can find hardware made in anything from glass to wood, metal, plastic, stone, and porcelain. Everyone reacts differently to the environment around them.
For example, raw wood will absorb any liquid that you might get on your hands. So unless the wood is painted or stained and sealed, it may end up turning the color of that spaghetti sauce you were holding in your hand when you opened the cabinet.
Plastic, although many people think that it is easy to clean, is also easy to stain. Think about what happens if you dump some old colored sauces into a plastic container in the fridge for storage. Once you eat the sauce it seems like the color never comes off the plastic, right? Well, that can also be the impact on the pull of your kitchen.
Other materials have other problems. Metal can corrode if acidic elements touch it. Porcelain can break with rapid changes in temperature, and it can also absorb things that come in contact with it.
All materials have their pros and cons. The key is knowing what you’re buying and how often it’s in your kitchen. Know what the hardware will be subjected to before you make a selection. Also learn how to clean it and make sure you do it regularly. Often, if you clean the dirt or grime right away, it won’t have time to affect the hardware and you’ll be able to enjoy that hardware like new for much longer.
