Refurbishing Hardware

**** UPDATE to this post can be found HERE.

It finally happened. After 6+ years of living in this house with brass hardware everywhere … and cheap white plastic light plates and outlet covers … I decided to take the time to take off every single door handle, lock plate, dead bolt, outlet cover, switch plate, etc. and used Rust-Oleum Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint to give everything a face lift … for pennies. That’s what I call MAKING CENTS!

So, here is everything before:



Builder’s grade brass …



… and cheap white plastic covers on everything.



Superman set up the garage, covered everything of value with tarps, and went to work.



He had everything down to a science. He stuck all the screws through a shoe box lid so that the tops of every screw got painted as well.



But, he wasn’t about to stick bright white safety covers into those outlets … so he rigged up a few more box tops and painted all of the safety covers to the outlets to match. Here is the result:



Uncovered, I think they look great (sorry about the blurriness) …



Slap the painted safety covers on and they blend in well and look so sharp on the wall.



I am not going to lie to you … this project was intensely time consuming. Plan on about 2 full days of work. It takes lots of time to get every piece of hardware off of every door and wall … and then a couple hours to get everything painted evenly without drips.



Speaking of drips … see how the handles are lined up across the 2x4 in that picture? Yeah. Don’t do that. Drip. City. Instead, paint them while they are upright (as shown in the picture just above that one). Much better result … way less frustrating. (ps- Check out the mismatched frames hanging up … they all got a coat of paint to match. However, again, I would lay them flat/horizontal, not vertical. Way less dripping that way)



This is the hardware on the front door (please ignore the dirty paint … we’ll get there eventually). It was so weathered and worn out. It used to be brass. But, by the time we painted it (and made it look amazing again) it was looking really worn out. I had priced out hardware to replace it: $180 on the low end. Um. No thanks. How about 50 cents worth of spray paint instead? :D



The inside of the front door. Light plate, handle, deadbolts … all painted to match.
Don’t they look so sharp?!

In all, we replaced 29 door handles and probably 100 outlet covers and switch plates. Total cost? About $15 worth of spray paint. Total savings? About $1,000. Win.

Here’s the side by side, one last time:



And yes, everything is holding up GREAT!