door knobs | Hicks House

Why builders continue to use brass furnishings when building a house is beyond me. Every time I look at door knobs, hinges and lamps in the hardware store the brass is the same price as the nickel and oil rubbed bronze fixtures so it’s not a budget decision. It will forever remain a head scratcher to those of us destined to replace ALL THAT BRASS.

Anywhoo, last summer our outdoor projects included staining the deck, un-staining the house (oops), and attempting to tackle the lawn.

This year we are going to be making some more noticeable improvements to the curb appeal. The first step was painting the door blue, and you guessed it next we had to change out that lovely brass hardware.

This project was a bit more involved than when we replaced the knobs and hinges throughout the interior of the house. Because the door knob we selected had a deadbolt and the more sturdy handle holes had to be drilled. If you like the look here is the set we used: Schlage F62PLY619 Plymouth Handleset Keyed 2-Sides with Plymouth Knob, Satin Nickel (affiliate link).

Now for the step by step of how it was done. First remove the old door knob. The Schlage kits are great because they come with handy templates to let you know where to drill. Ken first drilled the hole for the bottom of the handle.

Then the bottom part of the handle was installed and Ken moved on to drilling out the hole for the deadbolt.

Once the deadbolt hole was drilled through front to back, a hole needed to be made from the inside of the door to the hole.

Then it then needed to be rotered using a door knob jig to create the cut out for the plate around the deadbolt.

A corresponding hole was also drilled and routered into the door frame to accept the deadbolt.

The plates were screwed in …

and Ta Da!!!!

Doesn’t it look fantastic?!

Next on the list for project curb appeal is a paver walkway and raised planter beds to line the front of the house. What do you think of this small update that makes a big difference?

The 1980’s called and they want their door knobs back. One of the quickest and easiest changes we’ve made to update our house is the door hardware. The house came with cheap builder grade brass door hardware.

I honestly don’t understand why they even still make hardware in this horrendous color, I’m pretty sure that no one besides the builders buys it anymore. After replacing all of the hardware in the condo we were bummed to be looking at polished brass again.

This time around we wavered on what exactly to replace them with. Should we stick with traditional knobs, or switch to lever handles? Buy new, spray paint the ones we already had? What color – brushed nickel or oil rubbed bronze? The endless decisions put this project on hold for a bit as we wavered back and forth with what we wanted. I’ve seen a lot of oil rubbed bronze across the blogosphere but also seen painted black doors which I love. Although we’re still unsure if we would want to ever paint our doors black, oil rubbed bronze hardware would rule it out – too much black.

We eventually settled on lever handles in brushed nickel. They would match the rest of the hardware throughout the house while still being “different”

Changing it out only took Ken about 15 minutes per door. First he unscrewed the hinges one at a time.

Then replace with a new hinge one at a time so you never have to actually take the door down and it should still line up properly with the routered out hinge holes.

We also added these little “stops” to the top hinge on the doors that would come close to hitting a wall.

We found these hinge packs at home depot, that were WAY cheaper than individually buying hinges however the brushed nickel seemed to be constantly out of stock. Another delay.