Our house, like many old homes, has gold hardware throughout the house. Like literally everywhere in the house. Every door knob, every hinge, every strike plate… quite literally everywhere in the home. And, unfortunately, this color of door hardware really makes the space look dated. I priced out how much it would cost to change the hardware all over our home and it would be in the $1-2k range. Ouch. Unfortunately that’s just not in our budget right now. So below I have a quick but durable fix to update your door hardware from dated to modern with just a few supplies!
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Length of time for project: 2 hours (mostly dry time, maybe 30 minutes of active work)
Cost: about $8 will do at least 5 doors
What you’ll need: automotive primer, black matte spray paint (neutral and modern- goes with nearly every style)
What I learned: Start with super light coats. And shake the automotive primer REALLY well before applying. Skip either of those and you will end up with a tacky and not smooth looking door knob.
Step 1: Remove your hardware
The first thing you need to do is to pick a door to start with. I chose a closet door as my initial project. First remove the doorknob and strike plates as well as one hinge at a time. If you have help and want to speed up the process, you could remove the entire door and do all of the hinges at once. I chose to do one hinge at a time so that I didn’t have to remove and rehang all of the doors. This does slow down the process a bit but can also make it easier to do as a solo project.
Step 2: Do one hinge at a time
For the hinges are used rustoleum matte black spray paint. You will need to spray the hinges in one position. Let it dry. Open the hinge the other direction and spray again. Let it dry again. Then examine the hinge to make sure all the areas are covered. I also like to place my screws in a small piece of cardboard so I can spray paint the top of those to match.
Step 3: Door knobs and strike plates
The door knobs and strike plates are a bit more involved just because you want them to be more durable given the amount of wear they will receive. The only extra step here is, prior to applying the paint, you will first prime the surface with an automotive spray primer. I chose a dark gray color which honestly looked black with painting. Do two very light coats of the primer and let them dry in between coats prior to painting. It is very important that you do very light coats here. On one door knob I made the mistake of spraying too heavy and it was very tacky to touch and did not end up with a smooth finish like the rest of my door knobs.
You will again want to reposition your door knobs for each coat of paint just to be sure you don’t miss any areas.
Use this same method of priming first prior to painting with your strike plates as they get a lot of wear as well.
Step 4: Reassemble
Now just let everything dry for a couple of hours prior to reassembling. You can then move through the same steps listed above for additional doors and hinges.
This does take a bit of time and I am still gradually working through the remainder of my home to continue to update the hardware one room at a time. That said, it is a very low cost and durable way to update your door hardware and make it much more modern for WAY less money. This made such a huge difference in our master bedroom and I can’t wait to complete the rest of the house!
Check out the before and after of my closet door update where I added a super inexpensive frame to make it look like a completely different space!