Our cabinet maker said that "could" happen, but it was unlikly if you were using good quality hinges (like Blum) to begin with. He has done it both ways, and has never got called out to repair any hinges over the years.

Two pulls *look* good but they're a royal PITA to use. To do it right takes two hands and many times you already have something in one hand.

I have two pulls on an antique dresser. I really hate the double pulls. I finally repurposed it to another room where I can admire it without using it much, lol.

Well, the answer to this question depends on the size of your pulls! Have you chosen them yet? We chose a pull that came in several sizes, and we ended up using 4 different sizes of pulls to go with the various sizes of our drawers and upper cabinets. For our widest drawers/tallest cabinets we used 11" pulls, for our mid-size, 8" pulls, and for our smaller-width drawers we used 6-1/2" pulls (we also used 15" pull for our pantry pull-out).

When we were shopping for pulls, I read on this forum that a rough rule of thumb is that the pull should be approx., give-or-take, 1/3 the width of your drawer if you are using one pull/drawer. That worked for us.

We wanted to have only 1 pull/drawer for the reasons mentioned by your carpenter and Rosieo. Your KD should have advised the option of different-sized pulls for different-sized drawers, unless s/he has chosen one in particular that is made in only one size.

The new drawers will glide nicely if you bought good hardware--you are buying new drawers, not antique, right?

We have two handles on all nine of our wide drawers. We often open them with one hand. Being able to open the drawer without standing directly in front of the drawer is wonderful--I can snag one of the open handle pulls with one finger and open a drawer while standing adjacent to it. I can reach in from the side, pull out a fork, and shut it again without moving from where I'm standing. We chose hardware that stands over an inch proud of the cabinet (using universal access concept). The double handles look sensible from an observer's point of view.

Cabinet maker said hardware could take this kind of sideways stress, even with heavy contents in the drawer. We paid him for his strongest drawers and strongest glides.

We tried taping our handles to the cabs and thinking about the pattern before we made our final decision. Worked for us.

Knobs are more problematic--they require a full-hand grasp, not an index finger to open and you need to be more straight-on when operating drawers. Not sure how bin pulls work in this context.

I used two pulls on my large drawers for aethetics only. Cabinet maker said it was up to me, wouldn't bother the functin of the drawer. And yes, I do usually use one pull, but the drawer glides just fine.