Finished Doors : Re-Vamping Old Door Hardware

This post has been awhile in the making...

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my step-dad coming over and painting our doors.  When we took all of the doors off, we removed all of the hinges and door knobs too.  We wanted to refinish them with the oil rubbed bronze finish that I've used for both my Key Art and my Sewing Cabinet Makeover.  The shiny gold had to go.

After we took of ALL of the doors, ALL of the hinges, and ALL of the door handles, we scrubbed and sanded down each one.

Step 1 - Scrub and Sand

Okay, so maybe Chris scrubbed and sanded.  Details, smetails.

We have 11 interior doors and 3 pocket doors, which leads to a buzillion pieces of gold shiny hardware.

I actually attempted to do our bathroom door with the hardware still on it awhile back.  That's why you see a few pieces that are already oil rubbed bronze.  The good news was it was really hard to get it off with both scrubbing and sanding, so that made us feel great!

After we wiped down all of the sanded hardware, we spread them out into groups, and sprayed on the primer.  We used RUST-OLEUM's Clean Metal Primer.

Step 2:  Spray Primer onto hardware

 We waited until the handles were dry to touch, and then sprayed on the good stuff...the color!  We used RUST-OLEUM's Metallic all-surface paint in oil rubbed bronze.

Step 3: Spray desired color on hardware.  Step 4:  Spray protective finish over hardware.

After that had dried to the touch, we used RUST-OLEUM's Crystal Clear Enamel for a protective glossy finish.  That's where things got tricky.  It says to spray a light coat , but it really needs to be sprayed on wet (which means a heavy coat).  Otherwise, the top coat leaves a white haze over your hardware (see rainy picture below).

We let everything sit to dry completely for a few days.  We were so excited to FINALLY hang the doors (keep in mind, they were just laying all over the house...leaning on walls is dangerous with an 85 lb bundle of energy running around), and realized that we'd forgotten a minor detail.  Hinges can be seen from both the front and back.  The inside of the hinge goes along the inside of your door frame, and part of the outside of the hinge sticks out when you shut your door.  We had only sprayed one side.  Argh.

So, we went through the process of taking all of the hinges back outside and priming, coloring, and spraying the finish...again.  I left to go for a jog one evening before the color was dry, and asked Chris just to spray a top coat on the hinges in another 10 minutes.

Well, my over-achieving husband decided that he'd surprise me and spray another top coat on ALL of the hardware.  There's a problem with attempting to do anything outside for longer spurts than 10 minutes in the summer evenings here in Florida.  It's called rain.  It can be completely sunny and raining, or completely cloudy and not raining, so you just never know what you're gonna get.

This is what I came home to from my long, wet, run:

Yep, all of them looked like that.  Sigh...time to top coat, heavily, again.

The next afternoon, I took a section outside at a time, sprayed, and brought them back in.

Ah...finally.  There you are sparkly doorknobs!  SO much better!

We managed to get the doors all hung, and most of the doors hardware on before my sister got here last weekend.  We still do have a few doors with just holes in them where the door knobs should be, so hopefully we manage to get that finished up this week / weekend!

It was a pain in the butt project, no lie, but we saved so much $$ in the end.  For just the hinges, it would've cost us $10 a door to replace them.  That's $110 for all of our doors, and the hinges are the cheap part!  It cost us about $6 for the color spray can, $3.50 for the primer, and $3.50 for the clear coat finish.  We used 3 cans of color, 2 cans of finish, and 1 can of primer.

And because I know you're dying to see a good before and after...

Before : Yellow door , gold knob

After:  White door, oil rubbed bronze knob, and not decided on yet vinyl art.

What's that?  You can't see the knob so well?  All right, I'll give you a close up:

If you try this at home, make sure you:

1. Scrub and sand your hardware.
2. Use a primer.
3. Use the color of your choice, made to stick to metal.
4. Put on a heavy coat of sealer.  Be careful to not let it rain on this step!

So what do you guys think?  Do you think all of our hard work was worth it?!  We sure do!!

As always, check out my links tab at the top to see the parties I'm linking up to.  There's so many creative and fun DIY ideas out there!