Tour de knobs part I

One of the intriguing and charming details about our Ugly Duckling of a house is the quirky fact that not many of our door knobs actually match. There is even one door that has a different knob for each side! It appears that downstairs has the most original aka historically correct door knobs and most of them have not been painted over. Upstairs it's a totally different story. The vast array of styles and the many layers of paint tell an entirely different story. Brass, oxidized to a beautiful aged patina, would have been the metal of choice but it's hard to tell now. Removing the layers of paint leaves a pretty ginged up finish and so I decided to spray paint the existing fixtures with oil rubbed bronze spray paint. It really looks nice and you can see how it worked out on the door knobs in the guest bedroom here

Here's a first quick look-around at the knobs upstairs

This last knob with its beautiful filigree pattern is actually really surprising. I found the exact same one on the webpage of a store in Chicago that specializes in architectural salvage and it was dated to about 1885 - 30 years before our Ugly Duckling was built.

Oh, the stories this house could tell! If only it could talk ...