As obsessed as we are with hardware, one of our favorite types of cabinet pull isn’t technically a pull at all?rather, it’s an open hole or handle cut out of a flat-front cabinet door. To get the details on the technique, we turned to Remodelista Architect/Designer Directory members Medium Plenty of Oakland, California. Here’s what principals Ian Read and Gretchen Krebs had to say.

Above: A showroom kitchen by UK furniture brand deVOL has cabinet doors of rough-sawn beechwood with circular cutout cabinet holes lined in copper. (See the rest in Kitchen of the Week: Sebastian Cox for deVOL in the UK.)
What are cutout cabinet pulls"
A cutout cabinet pull is a simple hole or notch in the cabinet face that functions as a cabinet pull and is most often part of a fully custom cabinet design. On budget installations, Read of Medium Plenty gets a woodworker to cut a pull out of an off-the-shelf or otherwise preexisting door. The two most common shapes of cutout cabinet pulls are circular cutouts (or “mouse holes”), and U-shape (or “extended U-shape”) handles. When deciding on style, size, and technique, Read works closely with the cabinetmaker: ?Each cabinetmaker has a slightly different way of doing it,? he says. ?So we work with them to get the best solution.”

Above: In a Melbourne kitchen by architect and stylist Sarah Trotter, black-stained birch ply cabinets open via circle cutout pulls. (See more in Kitchen of the Week:...