Swapping Out a Doorknob

All of the doors on the second floor of our castle have the cool old brass doorknobs with tons of character. I love the patina that they have developed from decades of use, and the little bit of shimmer that they lend to the hallway.

However, the mechanism for the brass doorknob on the bathroom door was broken, and the doorknob would routinely fall off and crash to the floor. This usually happened when we had guests over and they went to use the restroom for the first time. ;-) Not exactly the kind of first impression we were going for, you know?

We tried to fix it multiple times, but there were a few parts missing that made it only a temporary fix each time. Not long after our latest fix-it session, the knob would once again crash to the floor.

We have a ReStore near our house, so we swung by one day to see if they had any old brass doorknobs that matched the style of our house for a reasonable price. Alas, they neither had matching knobs, nor were they reasonable! :-)

Then one day I remembered that there were some random house parts sitting up in the attic from before we moved in. I went up and rooted around in the dusty eaves, and found the two ends of a glass doorknob hidden among the cobwebs. After a couple of alterations, and harvesting two screws from the old doorknob mechanism, we now have a working, non-crashing doorknob on the bathroom door. And, the cut glass is just gorgeous! I love how it looks against the dark wood of the door, and the bit more sparkle that it brings to that dark corner full o' doors.

So for zero dollars and cents, and just a bit of ingenuity, we fixed a problem and added some glam on top of that! Gotta love projects that are easy on the eyes as well as the wallet!


Linked to Metamorphosis Monday, DIY Parade, Making Monday Marvelous,, Making the World Cuter Monday