Should You Go Knobless?

July 08, 2022

With many choices for cabinet doors, which is best for you, and should you go knobless? A slab panel door is a door without ornamentation: no trim pieces added, no patterning on it and sometimes not even knobs or pulls. It is routed on the top or one side to allow a recessed finger pull. This finger pull is what prevents the need for a cabinet or pull on your cabinet. Why go knobless? What are the advantages of a slab door and no knobs or pulls? Let’s explore.

Routered finger pull

Going knobless can create a very elegant look, with nothing to break the flow of the eye cabinet to cabinet. A knobless kitchen looks very sleek, and modern. It’s a nice look, but it’s not just the look that is an advantage to going knobless. There are a few other benefits as well.

Without knobs or pulls, you have an easier clean up. Without knobs wiping down the cabinet fronts is easy, but you have to remember to clean the routered area of grease build-up, flour or dust, crumbs that may get into them, or broken fingernails.

Without knobs or pulls, there is nothing to catch your clothing on. You may cut down on repairing or trashing your blouse, pajamas, or jeans if you don’t have knobs or pulls on your cabinets. It may not happen to everyone daily, but there have been at least a few times most of us have had clothing catch on a cabinet knob and started to walk away, or turned and felt the resistance of the knob.

Without knobs or pulls, you don’t have to worry about replacing them if you change your surrounding décor: the colors you use in the kitchen, the theme you have (bumble bees, chickens, or roses, for instance), or the countertop even. Knobless cabinet doors allow you to do so without having to change the blue knobs when you change your color to yellow, or put the bees away and bring in sunflowers.

Of course, going knobless means a few negatives, as well. Without cabinet knobs or pulls, you don’t have the beauty and versatility of the plethora of cabinet knobs and pulls that are available to you. You don’t have the emphasis on the vertical or horizontal that elongated bar pulls can create, the uniformity of the knobs aligned across the kitchen, or the fun of bringing in the ocean to your coastal décor via a pelican pull.

Using knobs and/or pulls means that you may have to put a little extra effort into cleaning them, getting kitchen grease, dust and powders (flour, powdered sugar, etc.) out of the creases and crannies. Thinking about it, though, it really can be worth it.

Knobs can add style, make a statement, help create a complete look to your kitchen. Knobs can add sparkle, add sleekness, or add to a theme like roses, for instance. Knobs and pulls can emphasize the look you were trying to create, enhance it: as going knobless can emphasize a sleek, modern look.