Upgrade doors with a quick hardware swap

*** Schlage provided me with the hardware for this post. As always, all opinions are my own. ***

Sometimes it’s hard to believe we moved into our builder-basic house in the fall of 2011 — about seven-and-a-half years ago. We’ve changed so much since then, the house is practically unrecognizable.

Well, until I turn around and see a leftover “basic” feature, like the thin, ribbed carpet (yuck) or the boob-style ceiling lights we have yet to replace.

One of the most ho-hum features of our house was the door knobs: plain globes of brushed nickel. No matter how you painted the walls — and believe me, we’ve painted almost every room two to three times — there they were, inoffensive, but undeniably basic.

So when Schlage asked if I wanted to try replacing them with ones that actually suited our modern farmhouse decorating style, I did a little doorway happy dance. I’d always loved the contrasting look of white doors with black door knobs and backplates — oh, how I loved the look of backplates.

I immediately picked out the Georgian knob with Camelot trim in a matte black finish, knowing it would pop gorgeously against our white doors and mostly neutral wall colours. We needed the locking Bed & Bath versions for the bedrooms and bathrooms, and Hall & Closet versions for the linen closet, our bedroom closet and the basement closet.

I dove into the boxes when they arrived, a little surprised by the intricacies of each knob set. I guess I hadn’t ever looked at the inside of a door knob before. Luckily, all it took was a single screwdriver to remove our old knobs and install the gorgeous new ones …

Continue reading in my weekly DIY column, My Handmade Home …