Coming Unhinged
I removed the doors and hinges and then made the necessary repairs from the errant nails. It took a lot less sanding and putty to fix than I thought. After priming you really can’t tell there was a problem. That is always good.
As for the hinges, I stripped them of paint and I think I’m going to switch them with another hinge. This was actually the plan along but I dragged my heals on getting the “new” hinges cleaned up. When it came time to mortise the hinges I decided to go with the original 1890s hinge that came with the cabinet doors. However, now that they are cleaned up I don’t really like them.
In the picture the below the 1890s hinge is on the left and an Ebay hinge is on the right. I bought a whole slew of these little ball tipped cabinet hinges on Ebay for like $15.00 (w/shipping). I think there was 20 or 30 of them. The plan had always been to have them nickel plated but I never got around to doing that. All the other cabinet hinges in the kitchen are nickel plated so the old brass look would not fit in.
I found reproduction ball tipped nickel plated hinges at House of Antique Hardware for only $17.29 a pair (Yikes!). I paid about $1.00 a pair for my brass ones so if I can get them nickel plated for less that $16.29 a pair I will come out a head. The question is, where do I get hinges nickel plated and how much does it cost. There is no one locally so I will have to send them out. Some friends had some stuff nickel plated several months ago, so I’ll ask them where they sent their stuff.
4 comments:
I saw an episode of Living where Martha Stewart had a bunch of bathroom stuff nickel plated. It was really quite inexpensive and the stuff she had plated looked great. Of course, she didn't have to mail her stuff out.
There seem to be a lot of diy articles on the web. I even saw some 19th century recepes on how to do it. Probably not worth it, since you're only doing a few hinges. Maybe a place that does chroming could do it.
I think it's pretty expensive -of course it depends on what you plate it with too. We have a place here near Chicago called Al Bar Platers in Wilmette and I suspect they are pricey but do beautiful work.
I spoke with a friend last night who had some plating done. He said it was expensive and that I would probably be better off buying them. I went down to Restoration Hardware, which started here in Eureka, by the way, and they had the same nickel plated hinge for $10.00 a pair. I think I’m going to go with that.
Hmmm, now that I think about it, I hope that wasn’t $10.00 a hinge. I’ve never considered Restoration hardware to be inexpensive. I’ll have to double check that.
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