One. Always one.

I would use one pull in the center of the drawer, but if you have drawers that might rack out of shape by pulling one knob, the construction of the drawers is not good.

ONE pull, not two. Your contractor knows what he’s talking about. The link below has great info on cabinet pulls:

https://sandiegohardware.com/blogs/resources/the-ultimate-guide-for-cabinet-hardware-placement-and-sizing

I would say go with what pleases you and ignore outdated or irrelevant advice. I, for one, don't like the currently trendy look of single long pulls; for a 30" drawer, for example, the rule-of-thumb length for that pull would be 10" -- too long and obtrusive for me! (And, anti-intuitively, more expensive than 2 5" pulls would be.) All of the drawers of 30" and more have two 5" pulls (18" drawers have a single 5" pull) in my recently renovated kitchen (shaker style cabinets) and that, to me, looks great. More often than not, I grab both pulls to open a drawer. But, even if I didn't, I would wonder about the integrity of a drawer that might go wonky if only opened with one pull, given how much better and smoother drawer hardware is these days -- hardly any effort needed to open a drawer at all! But, true, it is certainly easier for a contractor to smack a single pull in the center of a drawer rather than work out the best proportions for positioning two pulls on a drawer...

One! If you're holding something in one hand and need to open the drawer, you can't if it has two pulls.

I am in the camp of long pulls look amazing, but it depends on the style of your kitchen. I have 15" pulls on my 30" drawers.

ONE!!! Why? Because you don't want anyone yanking open a drawer from a right or left side pull! You want a single hand motion with a single pull at drawer center. Nine inches for a pull looks just great on a 30" drawer, and options for style abound.

Your drawers will live a lot longer, and it is far easier and looks better and less cluttered as well.

One pull, for the reasons your contractor said, and has been echoed here. Furthermore, I do not agree with @catspa’s comments above. A 9” or 10” pull would be perfect on a 30” drawer. The 1/3 rule of thumb is not "currently trendy" that @catspa said - she may be thinking of the pulls that cover almost the entire width of the drawer, not 1/3. The 1/3 rule of thumb has been in place for several decades. And the reason is that a 1/3 proportion is aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

But here’s what you do: make aluminum foil templates of a pull in a 10“ width and one in a 9” width. Hold them up to the drawers and see. There’s nothing like a visual to help make up your mind. If you don’t have the drawers yet, open up a cardboard shipping box and cut to the size of the 30” drawer front . Tape the cardboard drawer front to the lower wall, then hold up the aluminum foil pull templates and see what you like.

The comment that two 5" pulls would be less expensive than one 10” pull is not correct. One pull at 9” or 10” is less expensive than two pulls at 5”.

I recommend Top Knobs. Their pulls are well made. Take a look at Top Knobs Princetonian pulls. Well-made, easy to clean, no ends sticking out to catch on clothes, a good ”projection” so that your fingers can fit in easily, and come in a multitude of sizes and finishes.

Another vote for ONE pull.

These are 29.5" wide drawers with an 8" wide pull (7.5" wide from center of screws).

The heaviest of our new cabinet drawers (filled with crockery and large pots) can be opened by the merest twitch of my left pinky finger on a single pull. How much force is that? No need for "yanking", for sure. Our previous cabinets, with two knobs per drawer, weren't as "nice" and the hardware was older and not as smooth as what there is now, but the mechnaical integrity of the drawers was still fine after 24 years (the finish, on the other hand....), despite being opened every which way over those years. My eyebrow is still raised and my thinking is that people simply want to justify selling, or buying, single pulls (some people like the looks; sellers definitely like that buyers will pay a premium of at least 25%, and likely more, to buy a single pull versus two shorter ones, thinking that one can't possibly be more than twice expensive as two...).

You may want to think about using both knobs and pulls in your kitchen. Since cabinet doors are harder to determine the correct length for pulls than drawers are, people sometimes do knobs for cabinet doors and pulls for drawers. Or sometimes they just like to mix them up to look good.

Jenna Bush Hager's kitchen:

Here are some more kitchens that mixed pulls and knobs:

@M Miller, there is a premium to be paid for longer pulls in certain collections of Top Knobs -- look at the Grace Collection, Riverside or Pomador, for example (there are others). I discovered this while trying to how to proceed with our cabinets. The Princetonian is nice, and longer pulls in that style are not disproportionately more expensive, which is also nice. I also like knobs on doors -- cleaner look and pulls on doors are often not correctly sized.

Yes, the conventional wisdom here is to use one pull regardless of drawer width. The oft-cited reason is that it will damage your drawer hardware over time.

I remodeled in 2008. I put two pulls on all drawers 30" & wider. Yes, I usually use just one pull to open the drawers, but over the past 14 years only a couple of drawers have become misaligned and needed adjustment...but once adjusted, they're fine!

I think it comes down to two considerations:

• Two pulls is a more traditional/furniture look, at least in my opinion. One pull, while it can work in a traditional Kitchen, still is more "modern", again, in my opinion.
• What is your drawer hardware "brand"? If you have higher end drawer hardware (e.g., Blum), I don't think you will have a long-term issue with two pulls. Our hardware is Blum and, as I mentioned above, we have had no issues other than a couple of misalignments. On the other hand, if you have lower-end hardware (e.g., what usually comes with builder-grade cabinets/drawers), then I agree that one pull would probably be best. (Builder-grade cabinets come with the majority of production builders, regardless of price level of the home.)
• OK, maybe a third. If you or your family are really, really hard on things, you might have to re-align the drawers more often. But, our drawers have lived through two active/rambunctious kids and we still rarely had/have any issues. However, they were not so "hard" on things that things were always breaking.

[I have Blum hardware. My drawers are easy to adjust -- pull the drawer out completely, disengage the drawer from the glides, and close the drawers firmly. You don't have to take the drawers off, just disengage the drawer box from the glides until you hear a "click" and then close firmly until you again hear the "click" of the drawers re-engaging with the glides.]

We went with 2. One felt too modern for our log cabin. It has been almost 6 1/2 years and so far there has been no misalignment.

We put 2 on a 34" drawer stack, because I had 2 drawers on the top (in retrospect, I should have done a single drawer). I did like having the pulls lined up.

Our kitchen remodel was in 2013, and when we sold in 2021 we had not had any issues with those drawers. Blum hardware helps!

We did one (3.5”) pull on a 27” drawer and two on a 33” drawer. I like the look of two—that one has two small drawers above so the pulls align—but prefer the function of one. Sometimes I grab just one pull on the two-pull drawer and then have to remember to grab the second when it catches. That said, we did our kitchen in 2010 and have two tweens who’ve grown up with those cabinets and both drawers (two of the most-used in the kitchen) have weathered everything just fine. Nothing has gone bad yet and the one at greatest risk is actually the one pull drawer (but only because it has dishes in it and I forgot to specify heavy duty slides—nothing to do with the pull). So I don’t think it makes a huge difference—no regrets on either choice.

When I had my kitchen renovated a few years ago, I did not care for the look of one long pull on my 30” drawers, I chose 2 smaller pulls. They work well, no issues with my drawers. My husband and I always use both hands to open the drawers. We had high quality “Plain and Fancy” cabinetry installed. Choose what pleases you!

i never do 2 pulls on a dra.wer IMO 2 pulls tend to twist the drawer over time and require 2 hands to open a drawer why? I actully do all pulls in a kitchen and even go to the trouble of doing all in proprtion to the drawer or cabinet. Some installed vertically some horizontal. This is a good exapmle of what I mean I do however do mostly contemporary kitchen design and always think about function so I just find pulls more functional.

@kculbers...I normally don't like pulls on doors, but there's something about yours that I like! Nice Kitchen!

I have two smaller pulls for some wide drawers. I agree it gives a more "furniture" like look, and the one cabinet run I used it on had two half-width drawers on top, so the handles lined up all the way down.

Buehl: thanks!

Contractor is wrong! Designer here 🙌. Do what u want. When y have a huge drawer, over 30 in then u do either a 12 in (one) or 2 6 in.
I’m doing a 45. One would look weird.
I’f u do knobs. 2 might look cleaner.

I only do knobs. Just my preference. Im stuck on whether I should do one or two knobs on 31” drawers on working side of island. I did not do a mock up but when I looked at the drawer in person I felt like one would look fine. But now Im worried. I have 36” drawers that im definitely doing 2 especially since top drawer is split in 2. But my 31” drawers’ top drawer is still one drawer. They are high quality. Is this just a matter of aesthetic opinion? My knobs are 1.25” classic round knob. I do not have them yet so can’t physically hold up to cabinet. Thoughts??

I would do two. : ) that is reason alone to like a pull. But? It's your kitchen,

Curious your resistance, such as knobs uppers, pulls lowers, where a pull could stand alone,

( A 36 " drawer .split in two isn't an 18" drawer x 2?)