We have heaps of gorgeous and decorative door plates in our range, that are usually called fingerplates. Many of them were made, are were most frequently used, back in the days when soap was a bit more a luxury than it is today, and less of a necessity! I know a few people who’d like to bring back these glory days, actually. The point is though, that fingerplates are not generally used anymore. However, especially on interior doors, a lot of people kick their doors open. When you are carrying a screaming child to their bath… when you have a huge basket of washing in your hands … when you...

These are on the entrance to the Anatomy / Biology building at a London university, although we really think they would be better placed on the Psychology building Now these are not only door handles, but a form of simplified Rorschach test. You see, one handle is a nude male and the other a nude female … surely even if you are quite definite about your inclinations, there is a lot to be revealed, psychologically, by which handle you choose to grab! You couldn’t possibly clean these door handles. Doesn’t the patina do a gorgeous job of highlighting the valleys and peaks in both of their...

This gorgeous door handle is a truly interactive experience! It comes from Naomi Thellier de Poncheville’s portfolio, and while it is definitely clever, we think one of its best aspects is the way it turns cleverness into a very visceral experience of feeling welcomed! Beautiful. We often see the hand motif in older knockers, where a fist grasps the ring for you to knock with, and we also have seen various fist shaped door knockers … which we imagine would feel a little like countering a punch in a martial arts class … or even a pub brawl. This hand-le has a lovely welcoming feel though....

Putti are a recurring motif in old hardware – they symbolize a lot of things, including divinity, fertility, and bounty. And this horn playing little putti certainly has been living in bounty – as we would say in Australia, “He’s certainly been in a good paddock!”. He would be a quite obese child by today’s standards, and at greatly increased risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. But he just wouldn’t look as happy and comforting as a thin little rake, would he?! This gorgeous door knocker would be lovely with a little bit of spit and polish. Photo credits: Door knocker...

Considering that you’re reading a blog on a classical hardware and lighting site, there will probably be many of you that have a home which is classical… or to put it more bluntly, old! And old houses have old doors. And you know what happens when things get old… they stop working properly, they can’t hear like they used to, they get a tiny bit cranky … oh right, we’re talking about doors! Doors which don’t work properly can be both a pain in the backside, an embarrassment and a waste of money – doors are the number one form of controlling which parts of your house are heated or...

Wow! What a lot of security – such thick wood, such huge hinges, and so many metal studs … for a door that you could squeeze underneath if you were halfway fit! You can see how strong the malleable iron that the hinges are made of is … while the doors are obviously sagging, the metal hinges are still straight as dies. Any of the malleable iron hardware that comes from our site is just as strong. So they are still making them like they used to! This door is on the Palais des papes, in Avignon, France. Photo credits: Old door by Gilles

While we have already looked at Door County, Wisconsin’s fascinating if stinky, traditional ‘fish boil’ (shudder!), the history of the place’s name is actually quite romantic and fascinating also! The county is named after the Door Peninsula, which runs alongside it. The strait of ocean between this peninsula and Washington Island is apparently notorious for being a very dangerous little piece of sea. It is now ‘littered with shipwrecks’, and early French explorers gave it the gorgeous name ‘Porte des Morts Passage’, or the Door to the Way to Death … or even more simply, Death’s...

The phrase ‘cellar door’ was held by Tolkien to be the most beautiful in the English language … he said so in his 1955 essay titled English and Welsh. I do find it strange, though, that so many people have picked this up and run with it! The supposed notoriety of the phrases beauty has reached far and wide. It is mentioned in Donnie Darko, a popular film of a few years ago, and there have been numerous references to it in songs, films, and the titles of various things. I can’t find any literature on anybody actually linguistically studying the phrase to see what value it holds phonetically,...

Sometimes … very, very rarely … we find an old door that might have something taken away from it if it was restored, polished, sanded and had its handles and hardware replaced. This one is one of those doors – there is a certain beauty in its rawness, the weathering and scratching, and the random old cog that is acting as a backplate for the handle. The cog is a bit of a metaphor, even – it is something that is purely functional, not made to impress by any stretch of the imagination. Just like this door – a bit of refreshing honesty! Photo credits: Old Door by Erik Stewart

We’ve talked a bit about what doors mean to us, as part of our psyches … how they represent symbolic gateways, new beginnings and (old!) endings, transitions between one state and another, and all of that. Well, people in Hollywood recognize this too, surprisingly! And over the years there have been many movies made either centering around doors, mentioning doors in the title, or having them as a recurring motif, which is supposed to subconsciously indicate something to the audience. Here are a few of them… Sliding Doors This 1998 movie starring Gwyneth Paltrow just couldn’t work without...