Haha! This house is ~110 years old, and I have numerous styles/ages of doorknobs--and I love every one of them! The earliest were once brass plated copper, but now the copper shows through the brass in spots or has worn off entirely. I have one set of gorgeous glass door knobs, a bunch of copper and black 'japanned' knobs and other door hardware from the early 20th century, and then the latest are the chrome Art Deco knobs in my office. I took the oldest, fanciest brass pair off a kitchen door (why they were there I don't know) and put them on a door in the LR so they'd be seen more often. I'd also like to put the glass ones where they'd be seen, but I have no other door in the front of the house that I could switch them to, so they stay in the BR.

A few years ago we put in all new doorknobs (I had the cheap builder-brass ones). We put in the egg-shaped satin nickel ones. Not particularly expensive ones - Kwikset or something. I found them at Home Depot and then went and found them online somewhere at a deep discount.

Lynn if your home is as I suspect typical of NJ housing, I would consider glass doorknobs, especially in your beautiful bedroom. I would try to stay with the period of the house.

Kim, your house sounds like mine! We have everything from an Eastlake front door lockset to one faceted glass set (on a French door) to enameled black and white sets in the bedrooms and I love them all.

Lynn, I once purchased a house in Montclair NJ where the previous owner had "modernized" by replacing all the doorknobs in the 1891 house with charmless ones that "matched" in satin nickel from Home Depot. I spent years scouring yard sales, ebay and architectural salvage to restore some period hardware to the house.

If you have an older home, try Rejuvenation or another such company, if in fact you prefer new to old.

Good luck!

Mary

clubcracker, I can't figure out why anyone would remove those old knobs and replace with homogeneous HD knobs!

It also occurred to my that glass knobs, either old or repro's, might work well with Lynn's room.

Ooh, I did not mean to offend, snookums, if it came off that way (I just reread the thread). Ours were the cheapie cheapie round, satin nickels, no style to them at all. :)

I am also thinking glass knobs would be best in my bedroom and bathroom with chrome near the door (choice of finishes and none of them are glass near the door)but I noticed that the tarnished hinges on my door are brass. What do I do about that? I need to take the door off to put better insulation on the edges anyway since it has warped and teh insulating material has worn off and flattened and air is coming out on the sides of my balcony door in my bedroom.

I am thinking from reading the above that door knobs can be unique and beautiful and if one has an older home they can really add to the look of the room. But the door knobs on my hours are getting loose and a few are tarnished and lock had to be changed on one since it was not working anymore that well.

I think my home has an open modern type of style throughout it with now more of a shabby chic/contemporary/traditional look in my bedroom (my own look) and I would like a glass doorknob on my bedroom's balcony door but then I would have to change the door knobs on the other 4 doors in the room and another door inside the bathroom that goes with the linen closet? If this is the case, then maybe I should wait until the spring time.

Lynn,

I don't think you would have to change the other door knobs. You can make the ones for your balcony door unique. It would make the door stand out from the rest.

What part of NJ do you live in? I'm from Southern NJ but am very familiar with Central and North since I was am I sales.

Happy, happy, joy, joy - except for the gorgeous Eastlake front door and the four ugly cheap brass knobs in the PO's mudroom/half bath/laundry closet addition, we have all matching knobs in this circa-1900 house. White porcelain mushroom knob, black iron stem and rosette. They all need to be stripped of decades of sloppy painting (WHY didn't people just take two minutes to remove the hardware?) but at least they're original. The wonderful original lift-off hinges are black iron to match, although most of them are crusted over with decades of paint and are going to need to spend some time in the crock-pot too. I found two old interior doors with their knobs in the shed so we can switch out the junky pressboard doors in the addition. We also found the original side door with ITS gorgeous Eastlake hardware to match the front that PO chucked out there when he put in this horrid cheap steel thing. I'll need to hit the salvage yards for a replacement for the back door, since that one didn't make it to the shed.

I see no problem in having one really special knob on your balcony door if you wanted and then plainer ones in the rest of the room, especially if there is something to the fancy one that speaks back to the rest of the room. Say you wanted a sparkly glass knob but the others are simple round chrome knobs (just as an example) - a sparkly glass knob with a chrome stem and rosette puts the two styles together so they don't look thrown-together. If you wanted to stay with a brass look overall, you could leave your brass hinges and just clean them up (tarnish suggests that they're actual brass and not that brass-colored crap a lot of builders use, and this is a very good thing), or leave them tarnished and go to an antique-brass knob which might lean more toward your traditional side. If you're changing to another color hardware, switch out the hinges or paint them - IMO brass hinges with a chrome doorknob (again, as an example) just looks half-@$$ed. To save yourself hassle in the long-term, if your trim is white you can switch/paint your hinges to white and pretty much remove them from the equation entirely.

In a newer open-plan house, I think the best way to mix styles/finishes is to keep it pretty cohesive on each floor, with the occasional something-special for, say, a French door that is already different from the other doors, instead of just changing semi-randomly. I just don't think in a contemporary townhouse you can pull off the kind of hardware eclecticism that you can in house that's a hundred years old. Here is one thing you can do to save yourself a few bucks. We were running short on cash when we were prepping the other house, a 1994 Cape, for sale and after buying 7 knobs and 21 hinges for downstairs, another 8 doorknobs and 24 hinges for the upstairs would have been an ouchie cost. So what we did was we took ALL the original brass knobs off both upstairs and downstairs and piled them together, threw out the ones that didn't work or were really worn-out, and put the nicest of the old knobs back in upstairs, saving the best ones for the doors that opened onto the hallway. The new fancy knobs went downstairs in public view. There is a LONG tradition of doing exactly that.

I'd wait until springtime before doing anything with ANY exterior doors, though - brrrrrr! If you're not using that drafty door, you can just put masking tape over the crack temporarily. 3M makes a "delicate surface" one that is safe for 60 days, which should get you to spring when you can then redo the weatherstripping as well as change out the doorknob. Lacks something aesthetically but is better than putting up with the drafts and it's only for a couple of months.

Jerseygirl_1, Thank you for letting me know I am just change the balcony door's door knob which I think would look so much better in crystal since the brass is really standing out and is seen when walking in the room while the closet doors and bathroom door are in a little hallways that attaches the Master Bedroom to the Master Bathroom so I can leave them alone. I like that idea for now. I still think the bathroom door knobs in brass do not go with my chrome lights and appliances.

jerseygirl, I live in Northern New Jersey but grew up in South Jersey and went to college in Central New Jersey so I am familiar with all of New Jersey.

johnmari, thank you for your post that helped me a lot and I am glad your home has many of the beautiful original door knobs. Maybe that is what I can do is in the springtime, change the other door knobs to just chrome and only put the more expensive glass door knob on the balcony door. I like the idea of painting the hinges to match the trim and then I will not have to worry about changing them unless in the springtime when I am adding weather-stripping, I find it is not too expensive to change the brass to chrome. I tried to put this rubber inexpensive stuff on teh sides of my door last year and it is all coming off now. I put a strip of some kind of plastic on the bottom of the door to help but nothing is as good as a door that has been weaher-stripped the right way. I have to keep towels at the bottom of my door at night to keep some of the draft out. I always wanted a balcony door and now that I have one, I wish it was in a different room and not my Master Bedroom.

I love how you jazzed up your former home you sold by putting all the nicer older knobs upstairs and buying newer knobs for downstairs.

My post reappeared. I can't wait to find a glass door knob for my balcony door. I learned so much by this post. Thank you everyone.

We put levers on all our doors last year. This is the model, in the Venetian Bronze finish.

Here is a link that might be useful: Kwikset Brooklane

Our front & vestibule doors have the original Victorian brass hardware & knobs while the majority of the rest of the knobs are cut glass w/ a few porcelain and 1 or 2 wooden knobs thrown in.

I am especially interested in reading the posts on this issue because I am in the market for knobs for our whole house (re-build). I am hoping to get a vintage look, and if anyone else is out there looking for the same thing, the companies I have found to fit the bill include:

Rejuvenation... very pricy and for some reason they have a message up that they are running very behind in terms of being able to get various hardware, no reason posted, but they aren't immediately available for purchase. They can, however, put two different finishes on each side of the set, like chrome on the bath side and ORB on the hall or bedroom side, which is nice. Emtek does this as well, apparently.

Nostalgic Warehouse... Okay prices, but still pretty expensive especially for a whole house. They have a nice selection of finishes, backplates (with or without decorative skeleton keyholes) and knobs (glass, regular, eastlake, porcelain, etc.) They have deadlbolts as well, but I don't know if I can get different finishes on each set, like you can with Rejuvenation.

Emtek - has an okay selection, prices are still pretty high with these folks. Selection is pretty good as well, but seeing them in real life didn't impress me as much as I thought I should have been impressed for a doorknob set that's costing at least over fifty bucks, more around sixty-seventy (for what I was looking at).

Weslock - inexpensive and fairly good looking, not as huge a selection.

Fusion - pricy, but pretty. Same sort of general remarks as Nost. Warehouse...

One other knob: Dynasty Hardware's Heritage knob #6352 and deadbolt - solid brass, good looking (but plain) - with a plain round rosette and "squashed" round knob - but in ORB it looks pretty good and it's $16.80 on handlesets.com.

HTH - mixing and matching I think is fun, but be careful not to overdo it and make the whole house knob collection seem TOO eclectic!!

The websites I found include Handlesets.com, directdoorhardware.com, knobsandhardware.com, Vandykes.com

mpwdmom, the venitian bronze finish is very pretty in the lever design you chose. It probabably looks wonderful in your home and updated.

ttodd, thanks for letting me know about your door knobs that sound so pretty and interesting and probably looks wonderful in your home. I guess the door knobs can differ in some of my rooms from what I am reading. Each door knob sounds so pretty.

Kaypeakay, thanks for all the great sites and information. I am sure many people and not just me will get good information from your post and this Door Knobs thread I started.

Kaypeakay, I got a catalog today from a company I was not familiar with - Van Dyke's Restorers - and they have quite an assortment of door sets, hinges and hardware. Might be worth checking.

Good luck!

Mary

VanDyke's catalog rocks.

I love my door fixtures/knobs! I have had them for about a year. They are by Emtek. I don't know about price because they came with our door contractor while we were building.
Here are some pics. Happy knob shopping! http://picasaweb.google.com/deckerproject/DoorKnobsAndFixtures

clubcracker and patricia43, thanks for letting me know about VanDyke's Catalog. I will check it out.

cdecker1, I just love the Emtek knobs in your link especially the glass ones. They were all so pretty and you can tell they are quality. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks all, I had seen the Van Dyke's website, and I ordered the catalog yesterday!
I can't tell from the site whether some door knob sets just come in the "passage" option w/out the privacy option - so I will wait for the catalog (or call them)!
They have rectabgular rosettes with glass knobs for 50 bucks which is the least expensive option I have found yet... but I'll need some in privacy, so am hoping that's available...

Lynn, I'm thinking, since you frequently mention you'd like to sell -- isn't chrome or silver finishes on the doorknobs kind of trendy? I'd do the bedroom, but to replace all the knobs with a current finish that's in vogue seems wasteful. I know I wouldn't want silver finishes on my doorknobs, nor would it look right here. I'd stick with a period finish appropriate for your townhome, as Deborah's suggested, which I think you'd said was sort of Colonial. If you don't like those painted brass builders knobs (who does), maybe a quality antique brass? I really don't think replacing the door knobs would increase your property value, either, in your case.

I love my townhouse but it is so expensive to live in my area that I wish I sold my beautiful townhouse when it was appraised 2.25 years ago for over half a million dollars and moved a little more south to a house with more land for my dogs to run around in the backyard. I am sure it is worth a lot less now with housing prices going down. My real estate taxes are so high also.

You are probably right that replacing door knobs will not increase the value of my home a lot but it will help a little bit since those that got top dollar for their homes when my home was appraised had new door knobs and new carpet or hardwood floors put in and crown molding and their kitchens redone.

I think I wil finish my bedroom in glass knobs with chrome bases if I can since that will match what I have in the room but the rest of my home I will have to wait awhile and do a little bit at a time. I think the outside door is real brass and is tarnishing but the inside knobs are that cheap painted brass builder's knobs and they are not looking so great after over 16 years (10 years and 2 months I have lived here).

Thank you squirrel for caring. I think my home is more of a modern look all over except my bedroom now is a contemporary cottage eclectic look. :)I was trying for Shabby Chic but I like how my bedroom is turning out. I still wish I went with the white honeycombs rather than the linen color. When I have sheers on the windows (when time), I will be happier. I love my Durham Furniture so much and I love my comforter.

Your interior does have a more contemporary look to it from what I can see, but you'd said something about the outside having a traditional kind of a look. I'd stay in keeping with the house, whatever that might be. (Unless someone has really nice doorknobs or something, I don't think I really notice them -- maybe I just block out that builder stuff!)

Squirrel, You have the best memory. Yes, the outside of my townhouse complex looks like a small colonial village and I fell in love with my complex before walking in my place. I guess I wish I had a basement, wish I had more land and I wish I had lower real estate taxes. But otherwise I do love my home and I love the location. Houses the size of my townhouse in my area with a finished basement and a little land are more than double the price and not possible for me to buy unless I moved out of my safe beautiful area.

Occupational hazard ;)

I'd love to get just a small place in the country, with my own property and space from the neighbors (and all their junk and homes they really don't care too much about). My th development is very poorly managed. I'd love to have more freedom with my gardening, too, even though I've been able to fix my area up nicely to my own liking -- since they don't take care of anything 'round here or even seem to know what a real or nice th development looks like. Most of us who got sucked into this place will never do a th again, unless we have to of course. It has been nothing even close to carefree th living. They've also run the property down by not taking care of it and letting the investors and tenants run uncontrolled. Yet we pay some of the highest condo fees in the area. Most of us believe we're funding someone's nice little retirement package. Whatever, something is surely amiss and we're at their mercy. I have loved my little place so much over the years though. Terribly expensive around here also, to move on. This place is paid for and was cheap as it's very simple and not a quality build. It's been worth it that way. Long as I get out with my kids before the gas lines blow or some fool thing!

Squirrel, I am so sorry about your townhouse complex not taking care of their property. I bought my place over 10 years ago and it has gone up in value a lot as well as being on the board helps to make sure I have my say in maintaining our property. When I bought my townhouse, I decided I liked it better than the house with more land and a two car garage and the extra bedroom that was around the same price due to the location being better where my townhouse is situated. I really like the area I live in and the way my complex looks. But when I bought my home, I had no pets and now that I have four little dogs, I wish I had land. I also wish I had windows on more than one wall and wish I had windows in my bathrooms.

My maintance fees have gone up a lot but they are still low for my area since we have no pool or tennis courts and my complex is a nice cozy and beautiful complex.

Pool? Tennis courts? Ha! My mother moved to a really nice development, with the works and then some. Beautiful professional landscaping, sometimes frustrating occurences, but overall well done. They pay only $100/mo more in condo fees, which also covers the parent association with all the amenities, including a luxurious clubhouse, tennis courts, golf course and lodge, organized activities, a library, tv station, vegetable gardening, walking paths, a couple ponds, garages to maintain, and a manned security gate. Must be a pool around there too somewhere.

This place is a shameful dump. There truly needs to be a law. Buyers beware.