If there are any amateur chemists out there that can tell us how this brass door knob has developed that beautiful pastel green verdigris patination in the valleys in the design, we would love to know! It is usually confined to copper, we believed … And if the photographer happens to read this, could you please clear up whether you were wearing pantaloons, or juts a ballet skirt when you took the photo, as per the reflection in the centre of the knob! Photo credits: Door Knob Brass by Leo Reynolds

In the US town of Naples, in Florida, drugs have been turned (indirectly!) into doorknobs, by socially responsible police policies. They have not managed to compress any fine white powders into anything sturdy enough to open a door with … although psychedelic mushrooms are already sort of doorknob shaped, aren’t they?! What has actually happened is that a fund of money confiscated from arrested drug dealers has been used to further safety in the area. As a coastal town, it is to be expected (however sadly and unfortunately), that the drowning rate is higher here than in landlocked areas....

These are in the French quarter in New Orleans – cool, hey?! I would love to see how they develop if they are left to age for a little while though … they have so many knobs and strings and bits and bobs, that a bit of colour depth in the form of a patina could only accent them. As a side thought, don’t you love photos of glass doors, where you get a little sneaky secret glimpse into the rest of the world that these door handles live in. I feel like I am on a cheesy detective show on telly, where I could put the clues together by enhancing the photo to impossible sizes (because all photos...

For a gorgeous metal, brass has gotten a bad rap over the years. In Hush, Little Baby, if the diamond ring turns to brass, papa will have to buy a looking glass instead (as if that is better than a diamond on a brass ring!) . The word brassy is used to describe hair that is obviously not a natural blonde … and not in a complimentary way! And if you are bold and brassy, then you are cheap and just a little bit unsavoury. But brass has been a staple of life for centuries – and we think that ‘unsavoury’ really just means ‘more interesting!’. The beautiful nearly-gold colour of the metal...

These gorgeous medieval looking handles are actually on a church door in Boston. They look huge, solid and chunky, until you look a bit more closely and see that the little bits at the right and left-most edges of the rings are actually leaves, pounded flat and shaped around the ring. It looks as if they are made of copper … purely by the color of the metal, but we welcome corrections! One last thing … it looks as if someone has sprayed them with mud, and they haven’t been washed or a very, very long time! Photo credits: Door handles on church doors, Boston by Barbara Smith

You may have noticed recently in some of our product descriptions (if you have been a diligent renovator!), that many of them advise on what sorts of rooms particular pieces will work best in. The delicate and detailed feminine pieces are often linked with rooms filled with flowers and lace – the bold, strong malleable iron and modernist pieces are linked with sparse rooms filled with dark colours and leathery or knobbled fabrics. But! You don’t necessarily need to have those sorts of rooms already in your house to enjoy the pieces … of course you can create your own individual ideas in...

Poor old copper – it’s very name is a insult in some circles. Although admittedly not in the most refined and sophisticated circles! But no matter what circle, square, triangle or otherwise you move in, if your period style home favours copper furnishings and infrastructure, we’ve put together a handy reference guide for the metal – its history, personality type, care and uses. Copper is uncommon among building metals, in that it is one of the few ‘pure’ metals used in building. Alloys are usually favoured over ‘pure’ metals (those made up of only one element), because why would...

You can see where this door once had a knocker on it, by the indentation below the handle, and the metal circle that is perhaps a striker plate – although not very well positioned, by the dents! So perhaps this handle is not quite as old as it looks, and maybe just a bit dirty… The handle being newer fits in well stylistically – it is definitely an old handle, but so unusual that you wouldn’t expect it to be extremely old. The uniquely engraved back plate, the upward-facing hand, and the miscellaneous bar are all just a bit different to be extremely old. But beautiful, nonetheless! Photo...

One of the more important decisions that you will make when doing a traditional renovation is whether to purchase the same hardware for every room of your house, or to mix and match … and then just how eclectic you can be with your choice of handles! In an Oklahoma newspaper, Mi-Ling Stone Poole, the resident interior designer, gives some very pertinent advice on the topic. The first thing she notes is that the main doors to your house should be in the same metal, and preferably the same style… although, her advice is not targeted specifically to people doing period style renovations. In your...

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