This week I was reading the fabulous blog, Reclaimed Home. The tagline says it all: Low Impact Housing and Renovation Options for Thrifty New Yorkers.

One post was about Recycled switchplates, with one designer making them out of recycled street signs. Very fun for a kid’s room or a game room.

It got me thinking about the things we have in our home. Not all of our door knobs or outlet covers and switchplates match. We kept all the original ones in use and moved the fancy Eastlake Ceylon ones to the first floor. It truly pains me that somewhere in our house’s history someone thought it was upgrading to get rid of all the nice brass ones and replace them with junk that is available at the local hardware store.

We also have these hinges on many doors. I suppose we should take comfort in the fact that we could one day sell our house off piece by piece if we wanted to.

My daughter’s bedroom has some very old glass door knobs. There are none in the rest of the house so I often wonder why just one set? Did one of the children like them? Did they just happen to have it laying around from a previous home of theirs and use it replace a broken one?

We have doors that are flat 4 panel. Doors that are raised 4 panel. Doors that are 6 panel. And a couple doors that have the panels going horizontal, not sure what they are called. We also have one door that I have taken great pains to strip and sand, and now paint. It is an old bathroom door with a window in it. I think it was to let let light into the hallway from the bathroom in the days before our home had electricity.

We have window locks that vary from room to room, and sometimes even within a room. There are random coat hooks and locks here and there.

Nothing matches, but I love it that way. It shows the history of the house. The progression that the house took over its 100+ year journey. Not all of the things are fit to stay forever. There have been more than one times when I have stood scratching my head and thought, “What WERE they thinking?” (The 1970’s were not a kind era to old homes.) I am sure that one day years from now people will stand in this house and wonder the same things about renovations we have done.

Maybe one of them will even hate that one bathroom has a frosted window in the door.

Though I am not sure they could ever hate it as much as I hate the orange and brown shag carpet with the matching orange walls in our formal living room.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 31st, 2008 at 6:41 pm and is filed under DIY, Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.