well, boil my doorknobs!
When’s the last time you thought about your door hinges? Ever think about replacing your door knobs?
…I’ll wait.
Hardware is one of those categories that often goes unnoticed, despite its outsized impact on the feeling of a room.
One of the first projects I did in our house was was boiling our door hardware. Yep, boiling! I used this post from Manhattan Nest as a starting point, sacrificed one of our pots (I actually got asked where this pot was the other day, hehe, whoops), and bubbled the paint right off of each door knob, hinge, or piece of hardware that past handypeople had decided to paint over.
…well, I didn’t boil it RIGHT off.
This was an extremely tedious process that involved carefully scraping, cleaning, and then polishing lots of tiny and textured little metal things. Like many projects, best completed with a good podcast or soundtrack for company.
The scraping was worth it though. Some of our doorknobs were porcelain, others were brass, and the hardware details were so intricate! Literally, they don’t make them like they used to.
Here are a few of the finished pieces:
our current state of affairs
Right now, we’re working on the dining room. It’s part of the Fall 2021 One Room Challenge™, a twice-a-year virtual hullabaloo for designers of all experience levels get together to cheer one another on in our quests to finish one room in eight weeks. It’s not a competition - just a way to build community among DIYers and professional designers alike. The challenge is all about peeling back the curtain and showing the process.
You can find other participants’ entries on the One Room Challenge™ website. There are DOZENS of us!
Our dining room has only one door, currently - and that’s to the bathroom. Whoever decided to make the bathroom door open literally onto the area where people are eating is probably burning in hell and doesn’t need my additional scorn, but there it is - I can’t bottle that up inside.
The nice thing about the bathroom door (said only the weirdest people ever) is that the doorknob and hardware are interesting to look at. Yes, a low bar, but related to the conversation I’m trying to engage you in about door hardware so let me just set that bar wherever I need to.
The hinges are like the ones I shared a picture of above, but since the door opens into the room we just get to look at the pretty spine of it (which I can see needs a little cleaning since having painted the trim white). We are missing the little cap to the top of the hinge, which I may have hoarded upstairs somewhere. Add that to the list of things to figure out!
Looking at my home this close up is terrifying by the way.
The doorknob is lovely - one of the really pretty white porcelain ones we uncovered. The plate is … well here it is, see for yourself.
Yes, you can see through the keyhole, and no, nothing is positioned to be seen through the keyhole.
the ingredients
a pot* big enough to fill with water to cover some door hardware
GLOVES!! (you’ll want some that are heat resistant for this work!)
mask and filters (be really careful if you are removing old paint - consider testing for lead!)
*you’re going to want to NOT cook with these things after this process - so choose wisely! If you don’t already have your dream cookware, I recommend using an old one and then getting yourself an upgrade to actually cook with.
the recipe
Take “before” pictures so you can marvel at your work.
Remove your door hardware - you may have to dig a little with the paint scraper to access the screws.
Important note: If you have complicated door hardware (like the big ol’ locking mechanism in the middle picture above), I HIGHLY recommend taking a photo or video as you dismantle it - you will thank yourself when you have tons of tiny clean pieces of metal whose purposes you cannot fathom.Put your door hardware in your pot and fill it with water, enough to cover the hardware.
Turn that heat on to boil! It’s going to stink - open windows, turn on a fan, and watch to make sure nothing gets stuck to the pot itself. Like you literally might have to stir the door hardware - use the grill tongs if so. Let them boil for 20 minutes or so, but test often to see if the paint peels off with little resistance.
Make sure your gloves are on, take the items out of the pot with tongs, and start scrapin’. I scraped items one at a time and left the rest in the water. I had… a lot of items boiling at once. I’m one of those people who packs the washing machine full even though I know it’s wrong. I did the same with boiling door hardware. Anyway!! Ideally, most of the paint is going to come off easily, and peel in big patches. If your hardware is super detailed or textured, you may have to spend a lot of time scraping. Get comfy! (It won’t be comfortable.)
As a final touch, I polished all the hardware before reassembling and reattaching. This brought out an incredible shine on most of the items, and just made the rest of them look cleaner. A microfiber cloth works best for this task. Love u microfiber cloth thanks for all the help.
Reassemble and reattach. This is where your reference pics/video will be a gift from past you to present you. Enjoy. And take “after” pictures, then brag about this to your friends because who doesn’t love a good “I boiled my door hardware” anecdote??
And that’s a wrap!! Beautiful door hardware, shining like the day it was born.
what’s in store for week four…
Next week I’ll be showing you my actual design for the space - believe it or not this will be the first time I do a full design process for one room of my house. Usually I keep track of my ideas across note paper and magazine tearings and online notes and my brain… ok I’m beginning to understand why a lot of my rooms are not totally across the finish line. Maybe I will begin organizing my own projects like I do my clients’….
