Cleanup on Aisle 9

No, despite its title, this isn't a post about shopping.  It's about doorknobs.  Specifically, cleaning paint off of them.  I know it's exciting, but you're just going to have to try to contain yourself. 

Our house was built in the 40's, and since then it's had its share of owners.  After a quick look around the house, one can clearly see that each of these past inhabitants must have decided to change just one doorknob in order to, I don't know, make the place seem more current or something?  This means that from my present vantage point on the sofa in the living room, I can see five different kinds of doorknobs.  And I can't stand it.  Some are shiny brass, some are "antique" brass, some are the original patinaed brass, and one is chrome (why?).  They're all different sizes and shapes.  But this is also not a post about replacing the mismatched not-original doorknobs with vintage ones, which is going to require some good luck and perseverance and a lot of Googling.

It's about the three doors in the house that still have their original forties hardware.  Over the course of the past sixty-some-odd years, everyone who painted the trim added his (or her!) own special paint color to the hardware.  It's like a bunch of kindergartners painted the place.  Is it really too time-consuming to a) paint carefully around the metal hardware or b) remove the doorknobs and tape the hinges before you do your very own Jackson-Pollock-and/or-Mark-Rothko-style paint job?

The hinges are so paint-covered it's a wonder they still work.  And being my mother's child, I cannot bear paint-covered hinges. (Side note / shout-out to my mom, thanks to whom my sister and I can paint anything quickly and neatly.  We did a lot of family interior paint projects in my childhood home, and Mom does not mess around where crappy paint jobs are concerned.  You prime when necessary, tape when it'll save you time, and buy quality supplies.  Or it will look like... all the paint jobs in this house looked when we moved in.  Shudder.)  And the knobs' brass backplates all looked like this:

I mean, seriously.  That is ridiculous.  It's been making me crazy since before we even bought the house.  

In a fit of madness this afternoon, I decided to do something about it.  Practice for the hinges, which I think will be a much bigger job since their backplates have actually been painted into the wood, like, fifty million times.  I wanted to see if a little scalding-water soak and some elbow grease would restore the brass to its pre-careless-paint-job appearance before I tried detaching all the hinges.

So I detached the knobs and the backplates, and off to the sink we went:

    Top backplate: one I'd scrubbed; bottom backplate: one that'd just gone into the bath.

And then I screwed them all back onto their respective doors, and this is the final result:

So much better!  I know it's a small thing, but at least I can sit on my sofa now without obsessing over the entry closet's sloppy appearance.  

Next up: hinges.  And buying vintage replacement knobs for the rest of the doors in the house.  And putting flooring in the bathroom, kitchen, and laundry area.  And renovating the third bedroom.  And gutting the kitchen.  And painting the guest room.  And putting up baseboard.  And tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...