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 case, I would think it is much more important to keep things the same style, or stylistic period, than it is that they are in the same metal … Although, if you want to do both, then our range of luxury handles and hardware includes a massive number of pieces where you can choose from a total of 19 different metals (like a kid in a candy store!). There are gorgeously exotic choices like oil-rubbed bronze, old copper (a beautiful rosy colour), patinated brass for that never-have-to-clean convenience (gotta love it!), or even the more modern polished chrome. One thing to remember in choosing your metals though, is that if you decide to update some knobs later on, or the handles in high traffic areas get worn, then the more unusual the finish the less likely you are to get an exact match, ten years down the track. Brass and nickel are nice and traditional, and also nice and freely available!

One interesting thing that Mi-Ling mentions is that if the main doors to your house are in polished brass, then patinated brass or pewter (with similar component metals to brass) would certainly work well as highlight pieces. These could perhaps be on cupboard doors or other smaller doors, to add a bit of variation and accent to that plain old brass.

She is a wise, wise woman … (!), and another sound piece of advice from Mi-Ling is that if your taste in hardware runs to the eccentric, then it is a safe bet to keep your old door handles if you are going to resell your house in the future. Not only do the new owners not have to be offended by your towering, clunking antiques … you don’t have to let go of the pieces you have found and cherished for your doors.

The main message is obvious, and just makes sense – while you don’t need to be rigidly bound to echo the door knob that is on your front door throughout your home, you do need to go into your hardware buying spree with a plan … and then contingency plans! Almost like going into battle … something that the historians among you traditional renovators will appreciate :-)

Photo credits: Cebra Voyerista by Cati Kaoe, Doors of Jogya by Farl

Bronze: the colour of beach gods and goddesses (later to shrivel to wrinkled walnut shells, of course), and also of third place at the Olympics. And, occasionally and with very good taste, the metal making up your door hardware in a traditionally renovated home! What’s the go with this illustrious metal?

Bronze is not an elemental metal –it is not dug out of the earth, it is made up by humans from copper and tin. Occasionally other elements are added, like aluminium, silicone, or phosphorus, to make bronzes with different properties. The Bronze Age was when it was used most widely as a metal – this is generally accepted to have run from about 3500 BC to 1100 BC or so. Obviously the entire period was not just people thinking of different things to make with bronze … it is a very useful metal, but not quite that absorbing! This period in different areas was also the genesis of customs like the individual burying of the dead as well as cremation burials, social hierarchies growing in complexity, and other huge events, such as the invention of writing!

As a practical metal, bronze is thought to be superior to iron in almost every way. This is strange given the relative rarity of bronze in modern culture – and its third place status compared to gold and silver! It is less brittle than iron, and so much easier to work. It only oxidizes on the surface, and then once this oxidation occurs, it protects the rest of the metal from corroding further. Like that layer of dirt on the 1974 model sedan we used to have! It has a lower melting point than iron, so you don’t need as hot a fire to make it workable, and is also much more corrosion resistant. Think of the trouble that rust causes you … which never occurs with bronze. (more…)

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 have been greasing your motorbike and you know you’d be shot for spreading it all over doorhandles (!). Kicking a door open is a common thing, inside your house. So, why not just transport your fingerplates down, and use them as kick plates?! They will screw in exactly the same as they would above the door handle, to be used as a fingerplate.

To decide exactly where to position your kick plates, just look at the pre made marks on your door. Not by the manufacturer …! Just check out the scrapes and marks from where you already kick the door, or perhaps where little peoples’ sticky fingers push on the door, or where dogs’ noses always seem to land…

All of our fingerplates come with screws included – either pre-drill the hole or just use a screwdriver, depending on what you door is made of and the state of your muscles! And you can kick away with pleasure 

Photo credits: Don’t kick this door! by Tina

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 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. The hand is also very modern … much of the detail in the hand’s shaping would most likely not have been possible to recreate in the times where many of our knobs and knockers were made.

Although, to turn this knob, I’m sure you might still feel as if you were in a martial arts class … or perhaps back in primary school, giving ‘Chinese burns’!!

Photo credits: Naomi Thellier de Poncheville

If you needed yet another reason to go for the beautiful softness of patinated brass in your door furniture, here it is! We’ve already looked at how brass is naturally bactericidal, without having any resins, coatings or anything else applied to it. And we also know (from the foot pull post!) exactly how icky door knobs that aren’t in your own home can be.

Well, courtesy of an American news service, we are reminded that if somebody with the flu covers up a cough or sneeze with their hand, exactly like they are supposed to for good hygiene (when there aren’t any tissues handy), but then needs to open a door immediately afterwards, that door knob becomes a little flu heaven. Flu germs are one of those that can survive for a time at room temperature, and if they have little droplets of liquid (mmmm!) to live in, then you basically need to wait until other people have wiped the door knob clean with their clean hands to not have microscopic flu monsters running around on your skin.

While brass door knobs help with this issue, we are still working on converting the world! In the meantime, medical staff advise the same thing that work safety posters all over the world do – unless you have just washed your hands, you should consider them dirty. This means that if you clean your hands before you eat and even before you touch your face, you should be fairly safe from infecting yourself with the flu. Then if you clean your hands after coughing or sneezing (better yet, sneeze into a tissue and then clean them), and also after going to the bathroom, and eating, you can also protect other people from getting the flu … a flu which, if you pass it on, may eventually come back to haunt you!

Photo credits: Do the Sleeve Sneeze by djcmackay