Soft Close Drawers (Blum: how much, new house, closing)

[anksagr]

Hi,
We are in the process of building a new house and my builder is asking about 2K for soft close drawers upgrade. Does this upgrade cost seems excessive? Is the soft close option worth spending the money ?
If you are building or have build a new house, how much your builder charged/quoted for it ?

Would appreciate a response from the group.

[octo]

High end slides with dampers are approx.$17 per drawer. 21" TANDEM plus BLUMOTION 563.series for 1/2" - 5/8" drawer thickness

[Big G]

I have this on the drawers in my kitchen and office, after a renovation. Personally, I don't care for it.

On the plus side, it keeps the drawers fully closed, if you're the kind of person who tends to "over-slam" them and get bounceback. You will never have drawers partially sticking out. You also won't have marked-up surfaces where the drawers touch the woodwork. Might be useful in a kid's room.

On the negative side, if you're like me and have a well-developed habit of carefully closing the drawers fully, it will drive you CRAZY!!!! The drawer closes normally to within an inch or so, then the damper takes over for a soft landing. Problem is, it prevents you from just fully closing the d@mn drawer yourself.

With hindsight, I wouldn't bother. For me, it's a solution to a problem I don't have. I definitely wouldn't pay the quoted price.

[ImpartialBias]

Up to you whether you think it's worth it or not. I can say that it's a pretty much mandatory feature to have in a "high end" kitchen. Depending on how many drawers you'll have, it could be worth it. I looked into adding it to my current home as we have a huge kitchen... in the end I didn't want to pay the price for someone to do it after the fact, and I didn't want to take the time and expense of doing it myself either.

If I were designing a kitchen for me , I would opt for them up front.

[nissan]

The cost is appropriate, our builder charged the same $2K for any/all drawers in the kitchen. We put in a lot of drawers for pots/pans vs. standard cabs and found it to be worthwhile.

EDIT: For doors, don't bother w the builder, you can easily install retrofit pieces to soft close the cab doors and they're pretty cheap on amazon.

[anksagr]

Thanks everyone for the responses so far.

We have about 32 drawers in total for the whole house. Based on some reading that I have done, the hardware for soft close is made by multiple brands and varies a lot in quality. Would you happen to know what brand was installed by your builder ?

Originally Posted by nissan

The cost is appropriate, our builder charged the same $2K for any/all drawers in the kitchen. We put in a lot of drawers for pots/pans vs. standard cabs and found it to be worthwhile.

EDIT: For doors, don't bother w the builder, you can easily install retrofit pieces to soft close the cab doors and they're pretty cheap on amazon.

[SouthernBelleInUtah]

It's an expected feature in newish houses. Don't skip unless you plan to die in that house.

[Beaching]

Originally Posted by SouthernBelleInUtah

It's an expected feature in newish houses. Don't skip unless you plan to die in that house.

Not really.
I've been looking at homes that are 5 years old to brand new in the $800k-1.2 range and they do not all have soft close drawers. They are not having any problems selling those houses either.

[octo]

Originally Posted by Beaching

Not really.
I've been looking at homes that are 5 years old to brand new in the $800k-1.2 range and they do not all have soft close drawers. They are not having any problems selling those houses either.

I agree that it won't be a big problem for resale purposes.

It does show a lack of attention to quality to leave them out. They are already standard for low cost IKEA kitchens so if a builder doesn't put them into a $1M house then they really project a nickel-and-dime, low quality image in my opinion.
Charging $2k is also along those lines because the cost differential to the builder is magnitudes lower and I for one would not accept these crappy outdated slides that builders still try to install just for them to save $5 per drawer.

[nissan]

Originally Posted by anksagr

Thanks everyone for the responses so far.

We have about 32 drawers in total for the whole house. Based on some reading that I have done, the hardware for soft close is made by multiple brands and varies a lot in quality. Would you happen to know what brand was installed by your builder ?

I don't know the brand but, whatever it is, they work great.