Old Hardware Made New Again

Last updated Jun 12, 2018 | Published on Aug 18, 2017 | Re-modeling

It’s hard to believe that everyone who worked on our house during his 110 year history just continued to paint over the door hardware.

It’s such a lazy thing to do.

The only thing more lazy is that we ignored the doors for the first 24 years we lived in the house 🙂 .

So, as we’ve been going through the house, we’ve been fixing the hardware.

Like so many other house projects, we googled what to do and came across this video. Following the instructions, here’s what we did:

1. Removed the door from the hinges. We have a couple of saw horses that we set up so we have a place to paint the door.

2. Pried the hardware from the door and the frame. This is no small feat if they’re really painted over. In a couple of cases we had to break out the DW40 and soak the hinge (while on the frame) so it would loosen.

3. Used an old pot and placed the hardware in it. We then added enough water to cover. Note – we never used this particular pot for anything else ever again. This is now its only job.

4. Turned on the burner and brought the hardware and water mixture to a boil. We then turned down the heat and let the pot sit for 10-15 minutes, until we started to see the paint coming off.

5. Removed the hardware from the pot. Note – is going to be really hot, you may want to use rubber gloves.

6. Used a small brush to remove the rest of the old paint from the hardware. It pretty much fell off.

7. Rinsed the hardware and let it dry. If the hardware came out really well, we were done. If not, there was one last step – spray paint it.

In the photo above you can see what most of our doors used to look like.

Ugly, huh?

We always tried to restore the hardware to its original state. But sometimes that wasn’t possible. In that case, we would paint it matte black.

Below, the first picture is hardware that we were able to completely restore and the next picture is hardware that we had to spray paint. Both made such a huge difference in how the doors and the overall rooms look.

The cost – almost $0. It just took a little elbow grease and time!

“New” Hardware – Restored

old door hardware made new

‘New’ Hardware – Painted

old hardware made new again

For more information

For more information about our overall projects, visit our House Tour page.

How about you?

Done any restoration projects lately? I’d love to hear about them in the comments below!

Old Hardware Made New Again

“New” Hardware – Restored

‘New’ Hardware – Painted

For more information

How about you?

There is nothing that thrills me more than hearing from readers. Please share your thoughts! Cancel reply

Pin It on Pinterest

Thanks SO much for reading!