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We have been working on our garage makeover since November, between both of us working full time and having a toddler its taken us a while to finish it. So far we’ve built our workbench, built and painted our cabinets.

You can see our garage makeover update here in this blog post as well as on YouTube and our Instagram page.

Because our cabinets are tall (about 7 feet tall) I wanted long handles that were at least 12 inches. The specific look I was going for it would have cost me about $200 for the 10 handles I needed so I decided to make my own, they ended up costing me about $5 each.

These were supper easy to make, It took 2 days only because you have to let the polyurethane clear coat dry for a couple of hours.

You can see the video below

Here is What you will need

5/8 inch dowel
Ceiling curtain rod brackets
Drill
Drill bit (This is a great set that practically has everything you need)
Hand saw or a circular saw or a Miter saw I used a miter saw
Polyurethane Clear Gloss ( I chose to go with a gloss finish but you could also do matte)
Paint Brush
120 Sand paper / 120 Sanding sponge (I prefer sanding sponges, since I used them for the first time last year I don’t think I can go back to sand paper)

Step 1- Apply Clear coat to the Dowels

You could cut the dowels first but I decided to apply the clear coat first so it was easier for me to apply the clear coat. As you can see from the picture below I used my clamps to hold them at the edge of our workbench.

Step 2- Cut the dowels

You want to use your saw to cut the dowels to your desired length, I decided to go with 12 inches for my tall cabinets.

After cutting the dowels use your sand paper or sanding sponge to lightly sand the edges and smooth them out.

Step 3- Putting the brackets on the dowel

First decide the distance you want the brackets to be on the dowel, I went with 1 inch away from the edge.

Because these are curtain rod brackets I drilled a hole into the dowel so the hardware holding the dowel could be flush with the bracket. You can see a picture below.

Step 4 – Putting the handles on the door

Depending on the thickness of your door you will probably need to use shorter screws. Our cabinet doors are 1/2 thick so we went with 1/2 inch screws.

We used a laser to make sure it was straight and also made sure to put tape on the before drilling a hole on the door. If you don’t have a laser you can use a level like this one.

Step 5 – Apply clear coat to the top and bottom of the handles

You could do this before installing the handles but I chose to do this after.