The Hardware Dilemma

I know what you're thinking. "White people problems." But they told me on Thursday that I had to tell them what color hinges I wanted because they needed to order the construction doors, and even though they don't have to order our real doors for a while, the hinges come with the construction doors. Alrighty then.

I proceeded to do what I always do and compulsively researched doorknob options for 3 days because we had no idea what we wanted, and we didn't want to pick hinges and then have to match the doorknobs to the hinges instead of vice-versa.

I have a little bit of a brass obsession going on. Not the cheesy lacquered circa 1980s brass, but true unlacquered, antique, acquire-a-patina brass that looks great with age (or if you're impatient like me, ammonia fumes. But more on that in a later post.) Basically, I saw this photo:

I am obsessed with this kitchen. I think it's from House Beautiful, but I'm not really sure.

...and now I love brass. Kevin thought I was crazy to want open shelving at first, but he came around and this is almost exactly what the right side of our kitchen cabinetry will look like. Including the brass!

After being so focused on that kitchen, I was really wanting to carry the brass through the house until my friend Lina reminded me that our bathrooms are a mix of honed black granite, white marble, and oh by the way, we chose chrome faucets for those bathrooms. We originally liked nickel, but it actually has a warm undertone and looks very pink next to Carrara marble. While we picked brass for our kitchen faucets, I just couldn't picture the same in the bathrooms. So, chrome it was. But in the process, we managed to create a situation in which doing brass hinges and doorknobs in the entire house would put those two finishes up close and personal.

I told my lovely friend Meagan about this today, as she shares my love of antiques and, incidentally, has fabulous taste. I told her about my brass hangup and she found these lovely guys for me (and I love their name): Anthropologie's "Persephone" knob.

This made my life easier. I obviously had to have them. 1) Ordering these required brass hinges. Done. And 2)  I could stop bothering Kevin, who was desperately trying to work and get me to stop asking him about metal colors. AND they were under budget (hahaha THAT never happens). So Meagan, we both thank you. 

Since the Persephone knobs don't come with locks, we decided instead of trying to retrofit them, we'd just mix in other knobs. We both have been loving the crystal knobs, especially the "Waldorf" style. No, they aren't very Louisiana, or even Southern. But I lived in NYC for a while, so I guess it deserves some kind of representation, right?!? 

Our builder likes to use Emtek, and since the Anthro knob is probably going to be a pain in the butt (sorry Colin) we thought we'd make the rest of them easier on them. Emtek's Waldorf-knob equivalent is the "Old Town" knob. We both love the knob but can't decide on the backplate. We'd love some opinions! I won't tell you which one of us prefers which yet. The color of these is called "French Antique" and it looks different in every photo on their website, but it's actually darker than these pictures would indicate.

Here are the options:

The great thing about Emtek is that you can select every piece separately without extra charges, so if we did decide to use a silver-toned backplate in the bathrooms, we could do a two-sided brass-and-nickel backplate. But I can't decide if that looks more strange than brass in a chrome and marble bathroom.


Then there's always this option for two LSU grads:

The "Geaux Tigers"

Don't worry, Kevin already vetoed it. It's a good thing he doesn't let me use the credit card while we're drinking wine on a Friday night.