Vintage Door Hardware

"Now of course I will be a little biased about this, but I just had to say something about the Nostalgic Warehouse line of doorknobs that we carry.? My brother recently purchased a home that was built quite some time ago and all the doors have the old school type of mortise locks on them. You know, the kind with the generic skeleton key that usually gets left in the door all the time - or lost so you can;t lock them. I'm not sure why, but?a couple?of his doors have a crystal knob, one door has a porcelain knob, one black porcelain and one made of brass. And not all of them have the same backplate either. I don't know if the guy that originally built the house 70 yrs ago worked for a company that sold doorknobs and he used some returns or leftovers, or maybe his wife just couldn't make up her mind so he got one of each.? Anyway, all of the doorknobs were quite worn and sloshy in the mortise box so we ordered some New York knobs with the New York backplate. They have a simple rectangular backplate and squashed round knob that just looks clean and simple. I planned on helping him install them, but after receiving them he was a little anxious to get them on the door and see how they look, so he did. Some of his doors are stained, while others he painted chocolate brown. The new satin nickel doorknobs look really clean and sharp on both the painted and stained doors. He did have to do a little bit of chiseling to get the new box in place, But he said they went in very easily. Now the?knobs have a nice solid feel on the door again and the latch is nice and tight. I have a similar knob here in our office that I installed on a modern door using the standard tubular latch (like most every other brand of door hardware comes with) and I was impressed with?the quality.?After seeing how much better his new doorknobs are in comparison to his old knobs, I think everyone that has an old home should replace their doorknobs with these Nostalgic Warehouse knobs or something like them.?The nice thing is, he still has the vintage door hardware look, but they are brand new. I wish I would have replaced the old hardware in my first home that was built in 1907, none of our doors would stay shut because the knobsets were so worn. But we were young, poor and didn't know that there was a new product available to replace our spent hardware. Now my brother just has to get the doors to shut better in the jamb. They have been painted so many times, they just don't close as smoothly anymore. If any of you reading this have owned an old home like this you know what I mean. Our first home had so many coats of paint on the moulding and handrail that a quart of paint remover would only clean up about 1 square foot of surface. We had to resort to other methods. Restoring an old home is a lot of work, but so many old homes have so much character and architectural appeal that it is worth the restoration process - in my opinion. Its just not fun to live in it during the restoration sometimes."