So much brass...

Our house was built in 2001, but it's got some really. uh..., lovely 90s decor.  When we moved in every fixture, door knob, hinge, and faucet was brass or better combo of silver and brass. 

Oh yes, it was beautiful.  So, we have been working on de-brassing the house every since (3 years in and still trucking along).  Probably the first summer we were there I tried spraying the doorhandles, hinges, and hardware in the downstairs oil rubbed bronze.  We have 7 doors downstairs  and 14 doors upstairs that each have two handles, a lock, a mounting hardware, and three hinges.  I thought for about 2 seconds about just buying all new, but at  $13 a piece for knobs and about $3 a piece per hinge that would cost us almost $500!  And that doesn't include all the faucets and light fixtures!  We are way too cheap for that and since the handles and hardware were in good condition, we decided to try and spray them.  

So, Sean helped me take all of the doors off their hinges and remove all of the door knobs and hardware.  I laid out sheet in or yard and tried to space them out the best I could.  There was so much hardware it took several batches to get it all done.  I sprayed it with Rustoleum's oil rubbed bronze and to give it more of an antiqed feel I took a Q-tip and before the spray paint dried I rubbed off a few accents so the bronze would show through. 

 We also sprayed them with a clear coating to help keep the paint from chipping and hopefully help them last longer. Sean helped me rehang all the doors and re-install the hardware.  It was definitely time consuming but for about $20, it made a huge difference in our house and was way easier to swallow than the $500 option.