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Builder Grade Hardware Gets an Inexpensive Upgrade

Updated: Feb 16, 2023

Brass is BACK!! Well, not all brass is back..in most cases the highly glossy brass is not great unless on something more contemporary. Do you have the old school, builder grade polished, lacquered brass door hardware? I do, well.. I did.


Polished Brass Hardware Before sanding down
Polished Brass Hardware Before

So we moved into our house that was built in 2004 and have the run of the mill, polished brass knobs throughout. I read some articles about painting them, but the thought of taping 49 door knobs and placing paper around the door so I do not paint the door while keeping babies from touching wet door knobs seemed painful.


I researched buying new knobs, but even if I bought some really cheap brushed brass or matte black it would have been at least $350 to $500 on top of spending a whole lot of time for replacing them, which made my head hurt.


I needed another way.


I went down to the shop and grabbed a sanding block and went to the inside of my closet to test a idea. I wanted to see what it would look like if I sanded the polished finish down. I, also, figured if it looked terrible Josh would never notice because he doesn't even know where I stack my jeans that I have stacked in the same place forever in my closet.


So I started with a rectangular sanding block of medium grit. It worked really well! I took a baby wipe, because baby wipes will be apart of my life now and forever, and wiped down the grit that accumulated. It worked well on the flat parts of the knob, but wasn't awesome on the harder to get to areas.



One polished brass and one brushed brass interior door hardware

I drove to Home Depot and bought a three pack of the 3cm Angled Sanding Blocks. These were just what I needed to get in those harder to reach areas. I do think I went back and got another two packs of three. I got my time down to less than 5 minutes a knob, which in the scheme of a home project is not too bad.


I liked the outcome so much that I did my front door handle since it looked so grungy! It looked like it had COVID! I couldn't live with this ugly thing on my pretty newly painted front door.


Front door handle set before

This obviously took longer than the other knobs, but it was worth it! I have a feeling this may need to be redone as it is out in the elements, but Josh wants to change it out to an electronic lock regardless.



Front door handle set sanded down

I did realize that some of the old horrible brown paint was peaking through so I quickly touched that up and BOOM! Pretty brushed brass finish!


What do you think?

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