It’s a little luxury having someone to open the door for you, isn’t it?! It feels lovely just being able to slide on through that empty space, without all that arm-wracking effort of holding the door open by yourself. Or perhaps that is just because the most exercise I’ve had all week was when my mouse fell off the desk and I had to lean down and pick it up off the floor … oh, the pain! Well, with one of these alternative door knobs you can have the pleasure of having a cute little character to open the door for you, whatever time of day or night you need to pass through it!...

Perhaps even more intimidating than the popular lion’s head knockers, sometimes meant to be a sort of symbolic protection for the home, is this Art Nouveau monitor lizard handle on a door in Paris. Personally, I don’t feel any danger from a lion’s head that is not attached to a body … those teeth need a heart to make the jaw muscles work! But this lizard looks as if it might be about to give you a nasty nip! The Art Nouveau movement was all about organic forms, stylising nature, and this quite realistic adornment is the perfect complement to the Art Nouveau style architecture...

Another edition in the story of your door in the future begins with these aromatherapy door handles from free:go design. They are very simply shaped, but include a revolutionary new idea … incorporating aromatherapy with your door handles! There have been plenty of electronics-related innovations when it comes to doors and door handles, and all sorts of new ideas regarding automation and security. But until now, amazingly, nobody has thought to just make the thing smell a bit nicer! When you do some research (or if you have ever received one of those daily-germ emails), you will discover that...

This beautiful, mechanically mysterious old lock belongs to a door in Sweden. If you have a genuine old house, this is probably what the insides of your rim locks look like! Aside from being a fascinating subject, it is a great photo – love how the hints of green patination on the round face in the middle of the photo echo the green grass, and the textures in the photo just seem to leap out at you.

These illuminated door handles are a technologically advanced take on the simple flip-lock with a little circle on the other side … they are from Brighthandle, and when you turn the privacy latch, the glowing part on the end of the handle turns green or red, depending on whether you have locked or unlocked the door. Sure, we all love technology … but there are some things which are really, really unnecessary. We know that our grandparents were saying that about mobile phones 15 years ago, but of this we are actually pretty certain. It seems that the only person that would have the money and...

This awesome door handle is titled “The Lock of the Genies” on Flickr … a beautiful, magical name that suits the handle and lock to a tee! The shadows in the picture help you feel the burning heat of the desert sun, and to imagine the cool caverns possibly shielded by the door, filled with blown glass lamps and hallways littered with stacks of gold coins. Such a gorgeous and vivid red metal that the handle is made of, also! If anybody knows what it might be, please let us know

When it comes to wonderful, inexplicable old mechanical door locks, Sweden has all the luck! The rust on this Swedish door lock has not only become an artistic part of it, from the photographer’s point of view, but seems to have become part of the actual structure! If it were ever cleaned, scrubbed and de-rusted, I think it might fall apart. You can tell how stiff it would be, and how many times you would have to curse at the lock to make it open, by looking at the metal spiral in the bottom left corner. This is what the key would turn … but only with much stronger fingers than mine!

It is a really cool door knob, isn’t it ! Okay, sorry about that. Had to get it out of my system. If you live in an area where your door handles are prone to being frozen, did you know it is a good idea to buy unlacquered brass handles … lacquered handles will soon be affected by all the moisture sitting on them for so long, leaving spots and bubbles on your lever. And then, you can literally see whether it is cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey! Or at least, a brass handle Photo credits:  I see Icy by Casey Bump

Nowadays, this locomotive knob is a quaint and rather cute representation of how life used to be like in the olden days. It seems perfectly logical to have it on a door knob – sure it is unusual, but it also creates a traditional sort of character for a house. There are plenty of people that put antiques through their homes for this very reason (we happen to know a few of them!), and if you can’t put an actual steam engine in your living room, why not have the next best thing – a picture of one on your door knob. But if you think about the knob in the context of when it was minted, this...

Such an ancient style, this knocker and studs on a heavy old wooden door. Despite their obvious age, they are still shaped pretty much like the day they were forged (of course we have to assume a little, since we weren’t actually around. They may have started out life shaped like giant bananas, or something!). I think the Occupational Safety people may have something to say about having large metal spikes on the front door, though – perhaps this type of traditional hardware is what spawned the saying “Watch where you point that, you’ll put an eye out” … I can imagine that actually...