How to Make Knobs or Drawer Pulls

When renovating a kitchen or bathroom, the cost of changing out the knobs can add up very quickly. The same goes when sprucing up a dresser with new drawer pulls. So I experimented with an inexpensive way to make my own, and turns out it's pretty easy to do!

For these knobs, I ended up buying river stones from the dollar store - I live in LA and though there are beaches nearby, finding stones that are smooth and the right size proved to be too challenging!

To turn the stones into knobs, all you need are these nifty things called connector caps (or barrel nuts) and bolts.

You can get connector caps in different finishes, like the bronze ones in the picture and you can get bronze bolts to match but since you don’t see them, I went with regular ones to save some money. If you do this, you just want to make sure that the bolt and connector have the same thread size and to stick with either metric or imperial (mixing the two won’t work). The length of bolts you will need depends on the thickness of the drawer face. In most cases, 25mm (1”) long bolts should work well.

Whether you use the connector caps or barrel nuts, the steps are the same. The first thing I did was find rocks that have a flat side and I sanded it down to remove any residue and have a better surface for the glue to grip. I cleaned off any dust and also cleaned the connector caps.

I mixed epoxy glue, and dipped the top of cap to cover it with glue and then placed it at the center of the stone.

I placed the knobs on a bed of gravel (I had that from another project - it's actually for aquariums!) so they could be flat during the drying process. You could also use sand for this.

Then it was just a matter of using the bolts to secure them to the drawers.

And that's it - my bathroom vanity got a whole new look thanks to these stone knobs.