Sawdust on the Floor

I am getting ready to start work on a new vanity for our bathroom. My wife, who is the decorating genius around here has already picked out the hardware for the drawer handles and the two cabinet doors. I get to pick out the rest of the unseen hardware, like the drawer guides. Her only comment was” I don’t care what kind of drawer guides you get, just don’t get the cheap ones”.   And I know better then to argue with my wife. But seriously she is 10000% correct. However in this case, cheap doesn’t necessarily mean price.

Unless you are installing some super special, extra heavy duty, self closing……… drawer guide, there really isn’t much of a price point difference from the cheaper units to the top notch units. But there is a world of difference in the quality. The bathroom vanity that will be replaced by this new vanity, was built by me many years ago. And while it structurally sound, the design is very dated. The design of the new cabinet will remain basically be the same, three drawer and two doors. But the unseen hardware will radically different. In the original cabinet I used center mounted under the drawer guides, I am sure you know the type I am talking about. These were all that was offered for a while at the big DIY stores. White, made of aluminum, with a single aluminum track that houses a nylon wheel. A couple of screws connect the front of the track to the rails of the cabinet, and the back is mounted to an aluminum mounting bracket. The nylon wheel is screwed to the back of the drawer. One of the so called “features” of this style of guide is the ease of installation. ( the first time only) I think the costs per unit were about $4.00 back when I bought them, today I could replace them for about $6.95. I know that number to be correct as I have had to replace those ….. drawer guides several times already. The problem with these types of guides is that they just don’t stand up to every day use. The nylon wheel often develops a flat spots, when this happens, the drawer will not open or close smoothly. Or if the track bends out of shape, the results are the same, the drawer binds or sticks when you try to open it. And believe me, it’s really no fun to replace a drawer guide once the cabinet has been installed.

For the new cabinet, we will be using side mounted drawer guides. Instead of the single track that the under drawer mounted guide featured, these have heavy gauged metal guides which as the name implies are mounted to each side of the drawer. The nylon wheel and aluminum track have been replaced by sets of permanently lubricated steel ball bearings. The original center mounted set would only allow the draw to open 3/4 of the way, while the new units are ” full extension” drawer guides, meaning I can now see what’s hidden in the very back of each drawer. Oh, and the price point differential, a whopping increase of $5.47 . The original less expensive guides retail for $6.95, the ones I have on order are listed of $12.32.

Don’t get me wrong here, not all under cabinet drawer guide systems are bad. There are some very nice, very high quality under mount guides on the market. My issue with under mounted guides is just that, they are under mount drawer guides. If your drawers are eight plus inches tall, then loosing the vertical height required to accommodate the under mount guides is no big problem. If on the other hand, your drawers are only say four inches tall, then the reduced height can be a problem.
Since most drawers are wider then they are tall, loosing the room on the sides is not so dramatic. Side mounted guides can eat up as much as 1″ of space for both guides, Loosing an inch of room on a 18″ wide drawer, doesn’t have the same affect as the same 1″ lose would have on a 4″ high drawer. Since most of my drawer are in the 4-6″ high range, I normally will select side mounted guides.

The ones I choose for this project have a weight limitation of 100 Lbs. per drawer, which considering that these drawers are intended for a bathroom is somewhat of an over kill. There are units that offer weight limits up to 250 Lbs., but of course as the weight limitations go up so does the price. There are also options for self opening, or self closing or both which like most things in life add costs to the unit. How much of an increase, well it’s kind of like ordering a pizza, the bigger the pizza or more topping on the pizza, the higher the price. In the case of drawer guides, the more features you add, the higher the price. Surprisingly the cost delta isn’t that much, I found guides with all the bells and whistles, for $15.88 verses the $12.32 for the ones I ordered.

So how do you select a quality drawer guide? First of all, consider the material the guide is constructed of. Unless you are a purest, stay away from wooden drawer guides. Yes they add some charm to the project, but in reality don’t work all that good. Also try to steer clear of those made of light weight materials such as aluminum. Heavy gauged steel guides with steel ball bearings have the best longevity. Also, consider the weight that the drawer can realistically expect to see, and then order the next larger size guide.
Beyond the actual drawer guide, installation can affect the quality of the drawer guide almost as much as the guide it self. Most side mount drawer guides that I am familiar with come with a multitude of screws, and instructions on where along the guide the screws should be placed. A, follow the instructions and B, use all the screws. There is a reason the manufacturer included that many screws.

So once again my wife was correct, we don’t want to use the cheap drawer guides. Guess I should have listened to her all those years ago and never have installed those” cheap” drawer guides. But hey, I’m listening now.

I would like to offer one additional piece of information on cabinet hardware. Finding the ideal piece(s) of hardware may be one of the biggest challenges. The two big DIY stores here in North America are probably the first place most of us turn to.  While both do carry a selection drawer guides, it is very  limited. The same can be said about other cabinet hardware such as knobs, pulls and hinges.  After getting frustrated with these limitations I have turned to online suppliers for my hardware needs.   The links below are some of the suppliers we use, hopefully you can the hardware you are looking for here.