This week’s clean up — ahh…a little elbow grease is amazing, isn’t it? I love these old door hardware pieces. They make the glass door knobs shine so.

• 

• 

So if you remember this door and it’s original hardware, I’ve finally finished all of the pieces and have put them back onto the door. See below the hardware, as it should have and DID look, years ago (remember the door is still original and we haven’t cleaned it up yet but you get the idea).

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

I’ve been walking past the front door and eyeing it a lot lately. Oh sure, we’ve walked past it 100 times but these days, with the chill in the air and the town and homes beginning to decorate for the holidays, we need a front door!

Well, to be clear we do have a door but it needs a lot of love and no one can see it behind the storm doors.

Previously I posted about the brass mail receptacle slot that we were able to bring back. Now that one piece is done, it was time to move on to tackling the main door know hardware. At first I wasn’t sure I could save it, but upon really studying it, there are again, such intricate designs in the patterns…I had to try.

At first I tried cleaning them while still on the door but quickly realized that wasn’t going to give me enough access and cleaning power. I worked slowly with a screwdriver and removed the screws and slowly pried the old metal from the door. I did some reading on how to clean old metal (not yet even sure what kind it was) and vinegar and soda with water and flour combinations kept coming up, so I gave it a try! That as well as a few others….

After some initial work with vinegar, I found that the hardware was indeed brass and heavy brass, too! After making several flour and vinegar pastes, the patterns began to slowly emerge from the years of build up. It seemed so resistant to coming clean but this pattern inspired me to keep going!

I began to employ other methods hoping that among them all, if one didn’t work on one stain, the other would. The rotation process began of flour/vineger/water paste application, then ketchup application (yes….lol! The acidity from the tomato and vinegar was said to help. In this case, poor results), then I tried toothpaste and let it sit for hours. That actually worked pretty well and helped remove some of the paint on the hardware (it had been painted over, too)! Then I would jump to Brasso and elbow grease, along with tiny scraper tools to dig out dirt in crevices.

The detail began to emerge and was magnificent! Researching old hardware patterns, this one came up and if I’m right, it’s a Windsor pattern and was popular for door hardware in the 1880’s. I’m so glad I did the work on this. I still have more hardware pieces to go on the complete set of the lock but this was the beginning.

• 

• 

•