For those of you that have bought door furniture from Architectural Classics during the year, or have been reading our blog, thank you for your support and interest! Since you are all part of the extended family, we thought we’d let you know what we are doing over the holidays. Personally, I’ll be looking after a mewling little milk-goblin (that is, a newborn baby!) … amid the usual Christmas presents, relaxing, talking to friends and family, and trying to find what my chickens and guinea pigs will like best for Christmas! I am staying at home in Australia this year. In fact, most of the...

Believe it or not, at Architectural Classics we haven’t just been sitting around, surfing the web looking for cool antique door furniture and cats that can open doors. We have actually been quite busy! Yes Mum, I promise that’s why I haven’t called… Over 2007 we have: Spent time at the Spring Home and Garden Show in Dublin, where the most popular items this years were our light switches. Plenty of people were enthralled with the Bakelite range, the jelly-mould range, and the ceramic range. Crystal was also a popular material here this year – which is interesting, given that on St Pats...

There are many superstitions associated with doors … and a few with door furniture as well! One of these I have a personal interest in, as a breeding member of the species – but however strange and terrible giving birth might be, I’m not sure that I believe this one enough to make sure I follow it on D-Day! This old superstition about doors is that you must unlock every door in the house when giving birth, to make an easier labour. The symbolism is pretty obvious … so obvious in fact, that it is better not too think about it for too long! But I just have a couple of questions about this: -...

This photo was really highly praised on Flickr … and truthfully, it is a beautiful shot. I don’t know how it makes you feel – but it makes me a little uneasy, like I am staring at a madman’s cell, or something! It could easily be a setting in an arthouse horror movie. The door is gorgeous, and the marble-looking tiles on the floor are decadent, but the white, white walls, the floor which is clean enough to eat off every inch, and the hundreds of bolts in the door give it away. It feels like the bench to the left might be the insane person’s bed, where they would spend night after uncomfortable,...

This door knocker is from Verona … when you look at it from a ways back, it could easily be a benevolent guardian angel, poised above your bed, making sure that no harm comes to you while you are asleep. When you have a closer look though, you start to notice that the face is a little bit frowny… there is a second face underneath the angel, which also looks like it might rather eat you while you were asleep, than prevent anything else from doing so. And what guardian angel has other creatures growing from the tips of its wings? It starts to look more and more infernal the closer you look. It...

Christmas is all about family togetherness … and your kids are likely the ones that are constantly asking for more time with you. Over Christmas you get to indulge them – they won’t know what hit them! They may even be so surprised they faint … and you can lie down on the floor next to them and have a little nap Here’s a lovely activity you can do together in the lead up to Christmas – if you follow the Roman Catholic traditions, around the same time you are decorating your tree. These door knob notes are super easy and suitable for kids of all ages – although younger ones might...

These pull handles are the entrance to a mausoleum in Loudon Park cemetery in Maryland. They are huge! Perfect for jamming handy crowbars or pieces of 2×4 through, if you happened to be trying to escape from a vampire or other undead thing coming out of the mausoleum. Aren’t people who build things like this thoughtful?! Interestingly, did you know that the Pyramids in Egypt, as well as the Taj Mahal in India, are also mausolea? They, however, are inferior, having door handles nowhere near as convenient for trapping ghosts and ghouls Photo credits: Door handles on mausoleum by Barbara...

They are gorgeous, gorgeous door handles, aren’t they?! They are Italian, and tagged with both brass and bronze, so we are not sure if they are an alloy of these metals, or perhaps different metals were used to make different parts. Love how they seem to be the same woman, at different times. Love the subtlety of the presence of her wings … she is so close to being human. Also love her flexibility! That is probably the thing that gives away her etherealness, actually! And how beautiful is the composition of the doors! They look as if they are solid walls, made of tiny, tiny square bricks. One...

Doors are imagined to have a strange sort of energy that is all their own – we have talked before about how doors have entered our subconscious as a metaphor for all sorts of things … they have their own special meaning in dreams, we make up all sorts of sayings, phrases and aphorisms about them, and even name supergroup rock bands after them! And all for something that is essentially a handy combination of a privacy, security and insulation implement. Because of the way doors have made their way into our psyches as something more than the sum of their parts, we have also made up various superstitions...

You know, the paint on this door has peeled so artistically, I am not surprised that it obviously hasn’t been repainted recently. However, I think there may also be an ulterior motive for it – I can imagine the poor owner coming out, morning after morning, to find a whole bunch of dead birds on his steps, that had flown straight into the door! On the pragmatic side, at least the peeling paint helps distinguish it from the actual sky A beautiful shot that shows that so many different things get better with age, not only wine… Photo credits: Blue Door by Stephen Pougas