Correcting a drawer front before installing a handle

Usually when I am hired to install cabinet hardware the drawers and doors are aligned prior to me starting the job, but there are occasions when the I find them out of alignment. For the doors, I do not worry too much about the alignment and make the adjustment either before or after I install the hardware. It doesn’t usually matter when the adjust is made during the process. As for the drawers. those are different.

In most of our homes, the drawer fronts are manufactured separately from the drawer boxes. The drawer fronts are then screwed to the boxes with washer head screws. The heads of these screws are quite large to allow the installer to drill oversized holes in the boxes which allows the drawer front to be aligned to the other parts of the cabinet. It’s kind of a crud method, but it works. After the drawer front is aligned, the cabinet hardware can be installed.
If the hardware is installed, and an adjustment needs to be made, it requires that the holes for the cabinet hardware to be drilled larger in the drawer boxes. Do not enlargen the holes in the drawer fronts. More than likely, washers will then need to be used for the cabinet hardware screws.

When dealing with drawers, the fronts should never be glued to the boxes, unless the drawer fronts are part of the actual box. This is rare to find in our homes. If the fronts are glued to the boxes and there are any issues with the drawers, new fronts may have to be sourced along with a replacement boxes. Don’t box yourself into this situation and just use washer head screws.