Whether an interior door or cabinet door, a narrow door stile can be a challenge. Creative positioning of a door pull can be a solution if you plan ahead. You will need to consider all the dimensions of your pull and not merely compare the width of a pull with the available width of your door stile. The width, depth and height of many pulls differs throughout a piece and this is especially so where the piece is not a symmetrical or a standard geometric shape.
The Hedgerow heroic trees are good examples of the variations within a piece.
Using Directional Pieces
The Hedgerow trees are a pair and the sway of the trunk is how we chose to designate one left and one right. Nature makes no such distinction which explains why these bronze trees can work pointing left or right as the restraints of the door stile dictate. The design and mounting spots also allows the tree to be positioned a few degrees off perpendicular which is helpful when positioning on a narrow stile.
The mock-up below shows a door with a 5” stile so by flipping the direction of the tree the sway of the trunks prevents knuckle collision. As the pull projects out by 1 1/2” it has ample clearance from the face of the door panel for a comfortable grip.
Re-configuring the pull
Many of our pulls and handles are made in parts which are welded together. All of our dog door knobs are made with the head cast separately to the escutcheon or pull. For a narrow door stile, we recently re-configured the location of the head so that the pull could be positioned horizontally. In the mock-up below the door stile is a narrow 3” but the door rail at 41/2” allowed the dog head to be positioned upright.
Left: reconfigured dog head location Right: playful use of the standard dog head location
With a 3 1/4” distance between ears some planning ahead is needed for a narrow door stile