Door Hardware Blog

Schlage has probably been the most popular doorknob brand out there for years and years. As a result everyone that sells door knobs sells Schlage - almost. It’s pretty much a staple of the door hardware industry it seems. The big box stores like Home Depot and Lowes carry Schlage so why would anyone buy it online anyway right? Actually, the big box stores only carry the most popular styles and finishes so you are limited as to what you can get. They have great prices on these most popular styles, but if you’re the type that wants to venture out of the normal polished brass or chrome you’ll probably have to special order it. Thats where we come in. You can save your time and fuel by staying home and browsing for your Schlage products online and have them shipped right to you. No waiting for a sales person to show you what Schlage has available. You can see the entire residential product line right here in all available finishes. Ordering online is easier and you’ll probably get your product sooner having it sent right to you.

online businesses are a different beast than a brick and mortar location. My brother owns a couple of bakeries and we often have discussions about the differences between our businesses. Some of the struggles and risks that he must take are different than those that we take. I’m not saying one is more difficult than the other. I actually completely admire all the work he does to make his bakeries successful. I personally don’t know if i could do it. Managing any business is risky, but it seems that online businesses are particularly vulnerable in the traffic area as search engines can modify the way they categorize and rank website on a whim. They give no warning. One day you might be king of a keyword, the next you’re gone. As a result we are always optimizing our website not only for the user experience, but for search engine optimization. This can be frustrating at times because many other websites tend to use less than desirable tactics to get ahead. Doing this can be great short term, but in the long run it has a much more negative impact than it did posotive. Not to mention the compromise of ethics. This is one of those cases where we feel like because we are doing the right thing and playing by the rules, we’re getting the short end of the stick. But, we continue doing what we feel is the right thing, hoping that the search engines will appreciate it in the long run and eventually give credit where credit is due. So for now, i guess we’ll be patient.

So I have this friend. We’ve been buddies since High School. Unfortunatley we rarely see each other anymore. Such is life I guess. But, we keep in contact and as a result he knows what I do for a living and visa versa. I was just talking to him today. He says he has been finishing his basement in his home and was looking for doorknobs to match his upstairs knobs. So he figured out what brand they were and googled it - it’s the easiest way to find what you need right? He said he found what he needed on this place called DirectDoorHardware.com, and then he realized that he knew a guy at Direct Door Hardware. Me. He’s been after a schlage doorknob in antique pewter and of course none of the big box stores like the depot or lowes carries that finish - or maybe I should say any other finish besides chrome and polished brass.

I’m glad he remembered what I did for a living, too bad it took him finding our website before realizing it. Everyone should remember that Direct Door Hardware is the place to buy doorknobs. I hope the next time I’m in the market for tiny electronic parts for circuit boards I’ll remember to call him up before I happen to google their corporate website.

For quite some time we have sold a great line of vintage style knobs from Nostalgic Warehouse. There are many knob and backplate styles to fit your historic home, but up until now we have just sold the complete locksets. We now offer all of the misc back plates and knobs for sale individually. If your old mortise box works fine but your old antique doorknobs are falling off of the spindles, you can now just buy replacement doorknobs and spindles if you need to. Check out our Antique Door Hardware and Parts.

I get asked this question frequently when people ask me what I do for a living. We have a showroom here in Logan, but a good portion of our business is not local business. People all over the country are buying their door hardware online. I’m not sure why it is hard to beleive, but it is for some people.

I think the reason more and more people are buying their door hardware online is because the local shops don’t carry any of this stuff. They might be able to look at some dusty samples, but most of the time they will have to order from a catalog anyway. It’s just so much easier to hop online whenever it is convenient and browse a huge collection of many brands in one catalog. We have more and more builders buying their door hardware from us because it saves them so much time. They don’t have to run around town to find everything they need only to find out its not in stock. Many of these builders we have become good friends with by phone. They call us up and we know what kind of products they are used to so they just give us a list of what they need. Or, they just place the order online at midnight if it suits them.

Really, more people should be ordering their hardware online. Direct Door Hardware has become one of the leading online sources for Emtek, Schlage, Weslock, Sure-Loc and Nostalgic Warehouse products. Our shipping timeframes are generally quick, its super convenient, if you call or email us we know the product we sell, and to top it off there is no sales tax outside of Utah. Just the sales tax will save you quite a bit. So if you have ever wondered who buys door hardware online, the answer is: Lots of people, and you should be too.

Sometimes its hard to keep up with all of the new products and innovations around here. We have a huge selection of door hardware now and with all of the pricing adjustments and new product releases, sometimes it’s tough to stay on top of it all. Luckily we have some great employees who do. Emtek just released a couple of new modern styles. Be sure to check out the Emtek Bern Doorknob:

And the Emtek Geneva Lever:

I’m a bit outdated on our wordpress version here so i thought I’d run an update. Easier said than done. My first install [of wordpress] a few years ago when I migrated from Community Server was easy, this time not so much. Luckily I had a backup and was able to fix the problem. I guess I’ll have to try again another time. I love software updates.

With the housing slump everyone is concerned about it becomes more and more difficult to sell your home if you need to. I think a lot of the panic stems from the media and not necessarily economic conditions in certain areas. There are definately areas in the country where the market is in the dumps, but other areas are being impacted more by the panic that the media portrays. Either way, its a little harder to sell homes these days than it has been in recent years. Having bought and sold home several times, I thought I’d share with you some tips on how to sell your home easier.

1- Color. Some might argue that nuetral tones are always best. I would agree to a certain extent but I think some good color choices (on the walls) can go a long way in your home. Extremely bright colors may not be your best option, but I think some warm greens, medium browns and even some muted earthy oranges make the home feel comfortable and livable. A home that is completely beige is boring. Do a walk through in your home and touch up any damaged walls or trim work so that your home has a fresh look.

2 - Staging. Some people just have way to much furniture and decor in my opinion. If it suits their needs while living there, great! but it makes a home feel cramped and has a negative impact on the perception buyers will have. It helps to go through your home and remove furniture that is not necessary or makes areas feel tight. You want your home to feel spacious, but you don’t want to remove everything or its harder for people to imagine living there. It is also recommended by some that you remove family pictures during open houses so that buyers perceive the home as an available product for sale and not someone elses home.

3- Make it look finished. Finish projects that are not done. People want to move into a home they don;t have to work on. Unfinished projects are a turn off.

4 - First Impressions are Key. Of course I will say this because we sell door hardware, but I think it is important. If you walk up to a home and the yard is a mess, the doorbell button is sun damaged and broken and the front door is shabby with an ugly, dented brass doorknob on it - its an immediate turn off. Spend a little time cleaning up around the entrance to your home, replace the old standard builder grade door bell with a new doorbell cover, and get rid of the dated brass doorknob. Repaint your front door and install a good quality handleset. These minor and fairly inexpensive touches will drastically improve the first impression your buyer has of your home.

There are a lot of other things that you can do to make your home more sellable. I think the key is doing what you can to make your home up to date and complete so the buyer does not invision a lot of work ahead of them after purchase. If it were me, I would replace all brass doorknobs because they are so dated these days. When a buyer sees the brass doorknobs the perception is low end and cheap because it was the builder standard for so many years. We rarely sell brass anymore unless it is vintage hardware for an historic type home. We have some great deals on egg shaped knobs or good quality door levers that are fairly inexpensive and would be a drastic improvement over the builder grade brass. You can also give your kitchen (another key area of the home) an updated look with nickel or oil rubbed bronze cabinet knobs or pulls. You can spend a few hundred dollars on hardware or lights in main rooms and make your home much more desirable. When the housing market is in a slump, little things like this can go a long way to help your home stand out amongst all the rest.

We’re always trying to mix things up here at Direct Door Hardware. Recently I’ve been trying to make some changes to our website system that would seem quite simple. However, due to unkown issues with software I keep getting one error after another. What will not work on my machine, seems to work fine on co-workers machines. What is the deal with that? Software should be stable and the same on everyone’s machine, and yet it’s not. And am I the only one that is really not pleased with Microsoft’s Windows Vista? It seems like we just have one issue after another and the older XP works fine. I’m not sure what is going on there, but I wish they would send some patches to fix the issue. Anyway, we’re still working on the updates which honestly will not really effect anything our customers see. We just like to refine things so it runs smoother for us and so that the search engines still like us. It’s a constant battle keeping things in check when you run a business that has an online presence like ours. And you thought it was just about doorknobs. Nope…. we have to know doorknobs as well as web design, usability, search engine optimization, security practices and much more.

Just a few hours after i posted our doorhardware order form, we had a customer fax us one he had created on his own the a bunch of doorknobs he wanted a quote on. I guess that goes to show that a form like that could be used by our customers. It’s good to know my thoughts aren’t useless all the time.