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| Get excited, people.
Yes, that's right. A whole blog post on the thingies that I recently learned from my new septuagenarian friend, Ernie (of the fabulous Locks and Pulls store in Overland Park), are NOT actually referred to as "handles" and "posts." He kindly taught me the appropriate term for the handle-looking ones are "pulls" and the post thingies are actually "knobs." That's just a little technical, insider speak there for you. You're welcome.
Anyway, I spent more time than I ever thought in my life obsessing about these little things lately, so I thought I'd craft a blog entry about them, and why they matter. It turns out they DO matter, by the way. I'm sorry.
You know how you can get dressed, and your outfit can look great, but if you wear the wrong shoes, bag, and jewelry (or belt and tie for you menfolk) it looks all wrong? Well, hardware is one of the major accessories of your home (lighting will get its own entry later) and if you screw up your knobs and pulls, you could be ruining a perfectly good look.
I Like Your Style. . .wait, what is it again?
What is your home's look? I'm glad you asked. When you figure it out, come over and help me! I mainly have identified our decorating personality by eliminating all other possible options. There are some deeply hilarious "identify your personal decorating style" quizzes online. Better Homes and Gardens lumps you into one of only three (!!!) categories. Sorry, gentlemen, you're not the target market, because if you can't pick between flats and wedges, you're out of luck. Real Simple at least uses interior decor items to help you decide. I took it and my answers were evenly distributed between their four potential results. Not helpful.
The best, quick-and-dirty online primer to decorating styles I found online was NOT in a quiz format. Houzz.com has a nice, BRIEF explanation of some basic styles with great photos and tips to achieve the style and pull it all together. Ian and I definitely fit in the "Eclectic" style category; one which, as far as I can tell, was specifically invented to capture those of us who have lots of hand-me-downs, art, and antiques that don't "match" in any cogent manner.
The good news: there's a name for our style! The bad news: it's kind of hard to immediately find items that instantly define that style. Bringing it back to hardware, let me give you an example.
Let's say your style is "Cottage." Here's your hardware:
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Granted, there are other elements that make the style, but the hardware finishes the look.
Let's say you're more of a "Modern" person: Easy peasy, lemon squeezy--here are your pulls.
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It's probably a little hard to see, but here's a little closer look for the hardware. Ignore the mess (hard, I know!) |
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| Still can't see them? |
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| Can you hear me now? |
We're painting our cabinets off-white, we did cream colored subway tile to coordinate with the granite countertops, and we're painting the walls (previously of the green sponge-texture-paint over vinyl wallpaper) a grey tone. So the white ceramic country knobs are not going to work.
Just when I was about to despair, because, as it turns out, our kitchen has no fewer than 54 pulls, someone saved my bacon. (That's not a typo. That one kitchen has FIFTY-FOUR freaking pulls.) My lovely mother-in-law, who has impeccable taste and prior experience as an interior designer, just happened to have 51 antique brass pulls laying around. Because, you know, who doesn't? In a terrific fit of generosity she gave them to us and solved our kitchen pull issue. Mostly. They're 2 and 5/8" and the holes are 3" and there's 51 and no place to put 3 oddballs so I ordered 5 sort of coordinating ones to hide in an out-of-the-way place but SERIOUSLY I'm not complaining because a) they're gorgeous, b) they'll fit our kitchen's look perfectly, and c) do you have any idea how much these little suckers cost?!
So, in addition to the 54 kitchen pulls, we also have 49 other pulls in the house that we'd like to replace. Again, it may not seem like a big deal, but if you had to guess, what era are these from? Be honest.
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| Reunited and it feels so good. . . |
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| At first I was afraid, I was petrified. . . |
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| Young man, there's no need to feel down, I said, Young man. . . |
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| Shake your groove thing, shake your groove thing, yeah yeah! |
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| If you want my body, and you think I'm sexy, come on sugar, let me know. . . |
Yes, the song lyrics AND the cabinets scream 1979. We obviously have bigger issues beyond pulls. Cabinet style is set and will never look modern, even if we do paint them. And once you replace pulls and knobs, do you replace hinges, too? Our hinges are all brass, they are exposed, and there are literally hundreds of them. So if you pick a chrome or brushed nickel knob, do you replace all the hinges, too?
We are painting cabinets and replacing hardware in an effort to update the home's style without going to the expense of completely remodeling all the bathrooms, so counter tops, floors, and sinks were all off limits for the purposes of our current project. Working within those confines, it seems to make sense to spend a little on hardware to give us a fresh look without breaking the bank.
Takeaway Time:
1. Identify your style: Start with what you actually like, and then figure in how you can pull together what your house already has. Unless you are building a new home or have ridiculously deep pockets to do a down-to-the-studs remodel, the ideal world has to meet the real world. As you would with accessories to complete an outfit, figure out what it is you want your home to say before purchasing hardware. Make sure the "posts" and "handles" you buy finish off the total look you are going for.
2. Budget carefully: Pulls and knobs vary widely in price, from as little as $1 per to $5, $10, $15, or even more. Seriously, no joke. Just the five I special-ordered for the kitchen (to sort-of match the 51 antique ones we're using) cost about $12 apiece. If we had to replace all 103 in our home we could be looking at a lot of money.
3. Plan even more carefully: Count how many you'll need and count again. Actually, a lot of my pictures (above) were to help me plan out not only how many I needed, but in what groupings and in what area of the house.
4. Measure carefullest: In my stubbornness to use the pulls we've been gifted, I'm making my painter fill holes and drill new ones for the smaller pulls. Good times. But my painter, and Ernie at Locks and Pulls, both had hilarious (well. . .more tragicomic) stories of individuals more foolish or unfortunate than I--people who special ordered pulls in the wrong size, contractors who drilled holes on the wrong sides of cabinets, people who changed their minds after seeing hardware installed. Funny stuff. . .right?
What do you think? Is replacing hardware a quick and cheap way to give a room a fresh makeover, as so many home design magazines would have you believe? Would you redefine or compromise on your decor style to make existing hardware work? Would you keep or ditch the pulls pictured in our seventies home, or would you replace them? Have you purchased knobs and pulls for your home, and if so, do you also feel "thingies" should be their technical term?
Well, I'll speak from what I know and then make a generalization (yes, I'm a researcher). When we bought our CA home, the cabinets, aside from not even matching (i.e. one side of the kitchen had one door design, while the other hand another in roughly the same finish), had no pulls or knobs. And you're going to make fun of me, but I did know the terms and didn't think it was that odd. If I had to comment on "thingies", though, I'd have to suggest do-dads.
ReplyDeleteWhere was I? Right, we had none. The doors were the kind that you could pull with your fingers, but they were old, sort of greasy, and splintery. Needless to say, I wanted to change that. It was not an immediate fix, however, since when we moved in, plumbing, electric *and* the roof had to be fixed. Not to mention replacing carpet that some people assumed was the painters' tarp when first glancing at the "before" pictures.
But, when we did put hardware on the kitchen cabinets, it changed the entire look of the room. It's amazing how such a small change can have a big effect. Of course, since then, we saved our pennies, gutted the kitchen and got custom cabinets. I got the knobs and pulls from Home Depot for $5/piece - 32 pieces. And to be honest, it's one of the things we get lots of compliments on.
My generalization is: this stuff is important, but only relatively speaking. It was more important for us to get the plumbing and electric working and put a functional shower into our master bathroom than it was to make the kitchen look good. If this is one of the more important fixes for you, then put the money in.