tired (but good quality) doorknobs? replate instead of replace

Excellent!

I love this idea, as sometimes when we upgrade door hardware, we run into problems with the door's receiving holes in the jamb. This addresses that problem, and $170 is a great price compared to new, especially when you consider the cost of a new , upgraded knocker, which runs about $50.00 in and of itself.

Thanks for posting about it - it will certainly come in handy for us!!!!

~Michelle

This is a great idea, I hadn't thought of.  I understand taking the knocker in, but how do you take the door knob and lock away from an exterior door?  You must have used a temporary one in it's place?

Two weeks ago we had to rehab some solid coffered cypress doors (Two separate front doors, ever seen that? It's so confusing!). We had to do the whole 9 yards - remove hardware, sand, stain, varnish and scuff, varnish and scuff, varnish and scuff again, and then add new hardware. It took an entire week. We put up 3/4 inch plywood over the doors and screwed them to the jamb. Poor guy couldn't use the front of his house all that time.

We used some of that wierd plywood with all the huge wood chips in it. We laughed and said, well, the client is safe in there, as long as an intruder doesn't think to take a garden hose to that plywood! I would crumble like a wet graham cracker.

Doors are NEVER easy. But they are so important. These babies were easily $1400 doors each if we would have just gone out and bought new ones, but we rehabbed them for about $300 + labor and some inconvenience for the client.

But it was worth it. They are stunning.

~Michelle

I've done similair with the house numbers and mail boxes except that I've spray painted them.

They turned out great.

Your price range would have been to high for a $130K house.

Very nice fix for a quality door.  When you have good pieces to start with, it just makes sense.

Hi Liz,

While your plating solution is not exactly cheap, as Virginia mentioned, I can still see it would save the client money, potentially quite a lot of money.

Here's the breakdown:

For the doors I mentioned above, we spent $150 per door on the cheapest brushed nickel set they had at Lowe's (on sale, off brand) , and we had beau-coup problems with the receiving holes in the jamb. We also spent $120 for a regular knob+deadbolt for two other service doors. All on sale.

The house is going to be listed at $179,000. But those were the cheapest we could find in brushed nickel on a local level. Not to mention we added kickplates to the service doors  ($20 each since the owner is in a wheelchair and we didn't want to nick the new doors). So we had to spend over $600 just on the hardware.

Shlage or Qwikset, both quality manufacturers, started at over $180 per set, and they would not have been brushed nickel for that price, which is what we needed. The ones we wanted were $239! I have to say, I hate buying cheap locks. I think it is SO IMPORTANT to have the best quality door locks possible. Safety should be the most important factor, not looks or price. But reality dictates the outcome, and the look is imperative to selling.

The client had perfectly functional brass, but they were older tarnished press-lever knobs paired with much shinier but still unsightly brass deadbolts. I can't help but wonder if the plating would have saved him money. I know it  have saved him about $260 in labor - it was an all-day affair to install the hardware on all 4 doors properly and adjust the jambs.

So I believe the overall financial impact would have been less expense had I read this blog two weeks earlier, by hundreds of dollars. I 'm sure it depends on the exact circumstances, but I can see very few options for updating door hardware for less than the local big box store can offer. If plating was $170 for both a knob set, backplate, and knocker, it's beating the pants off of $180 for the box of new stuff, when you factor in the door jamb issues and costs it circumvents.

~Michelle

Very good information and nice post and I love this paint choice!  Gorgeous, rich color!