<p>Hi. I have read and followed many threads over the years, and have found the advice and opinions that have helped me with many decisions. So thank you. I am looking for some inexpensive ways to update my 1970’s home which is a traditional center hall colonial. We have white oak floors throughout, with a clear coat finish and doors and wood trim in pine that originally were stained medium-dark brown. Over the years, I have painted alot of the trim in white and left the doors in the stained finish. I am considering changing the door hardware and looking for suggestions on finishes. The present door sets are polished brass, and it looks the hinges are antique brass (or possibly a satin brass). Should I stay with brass or choose one of the newer finishes, i.e. satin nickel, pewter? I would next look to change over our ceiling light fixtures, and would choose the same type of finish. I am thinking that some of these finish options will go out of style before I get around to changing everything out. Any other ideas?</p>
<p>If you keep your painting neutral (doesn’t mean it has to be white…) then you can use your furniture/accessories to “update”. Look at your window coverings - could they be updated for a fresher, cleaner look? </p>
<p>Are you planning to move anytime soon or are you making changes for your own personal enjoyment???</p>
<p>If your house is a traditional colonial in style, brass is in keeping with it. If your trim and doors are the kind I think they are, painting them is probably a good idea. The dark staining of pine is definitely a dated look. (If it were really old original trim, oak, for example, I would say PLEASE leave it alone! 
)</p>
<p>It really depends what kind of style you are aiming at, and, as abasket asked, whether you are doing this for your self of for sale. You might want to join Houzz, and look at other people’s decorating and renovating to see how various looks work in you kind of interior.</p>
<p>Oh, and another question: where are you located? For some reason I was assuming Florida. (FSU?) :)</p>
<p>I could see myself moving in 5-10 years. My spouse does not care to move ever. When I do updates and repairs/renovations I usually try to upgrade or improve the function somehow. We live in a very rural setting, in the woods and get very little natural light and I don’t have window treatments in most public rooms. I have a mix of antique and contemporary furnishings. The bedding items and pillow/fabric treatments that I have are all recent and updated. It is the house itself that looks a little tired. I am just about to go through room by room and re-paint the kitchen, dining room, powder room, formal living room, and front foyer/staircase. I know when I do that without changing the hardware, it will still look tired but freshly painted.</p>
<p>Also, the kithchen has been updated with countertop/sink/faucet/appliances about 12 years ago. The 2 baths have been re-done and the last remaining bathroom is underway.</p>
<p>My parents’ house was built in 1973. It has a “conversation pit” with a fireplace and built-in couch. At least they got rid of the shag carpeting! The house is very contemporary - no square or rectangular rooms, other than the laundry room. I think it is going to be hard to sell when the time comes.</p>
<p>No, not Florida. I live in a coastal town in the Northeast. I like upcycling, mixing old with new, and do enjoy Houzz!
I am also an HGTV addict.</p>
<p>Your house doesn’t sound tired, it sounds very nice.</p>
<p>Maybe you need to consider a color overhaul. Painting your walls in a palette of richer colors can help a lot.</p>
<p>Do you have a favorite HGTV designer? Check out Pinterest for their own boards or just search their names to really SEE what facets of their decorating/redesign really appeal to you. Once you see a pattern to what catches your eye and is pleasing to you (wood floors? area rugs? colors? geometric patterns?) you can start to picture where you’d want to go with a room. </p>
<p>But since you mentioned you have wood floors - how about replacing any area rugs you have (not talking the ones you wipe your feet off on coming in the door) or adding some? Rugs can serve as a great inspiration piece. I just ordered my first rug off an online site at a very good discount - it has arrived and is serving as the inspiration for our new sunporch that is getting a new floor tomorrow! </p>
<p>Okay, just came back from checking out Houzz. What I am drawn to in most photos are the millwork, the lighting fixtures (like the jewelry for the room), and the proper scaling of the furniture to the space or use of space, and the balance and use of color (doesn’t matter if its all neutral or bold…just that it looks “right”). I like when you go from room to room and the colors/theme carry from one space to the next.</p>
<p>Rehab Addict, Flea Market Flip are 2 of my favorites for recognizing quality items that have useful life. I can’t stand Love it or LIst it with Hilary because when she’s done with her spaces I think they rarely resemble the rest of the house.</p>
<p>Painting the trim and doors sounds like a good idea and should brighten up the rooms. If you want new door handsets, have you thought about lever handles instead of knobs? They’re easier to use when your hands are full as well as for folks with grip problems. With your hinges and overall house style, I’d do traditional lever handles in antique brass, buying the best quality I could afford. Architectural Digest, Traditional Home and other shelter magazines have been showing a lot of antique brass for at least a couple of years in upper bracket houses. </p>
<p>If I were building from scratch, I’d use nickel hardware even though I was recently told it’s on its way out (again.) I don’t think it would be worth the expense to replace all of your door hinges and other hardware now. The only finish I’d never again use is bright brass. Per HGTV shows, too many people (potential buyers) can’t tell the difference between good quality brass and the cheap stuff from the big box stores so they dismiss it all.</p>
<p>Do you have crown molding in your main living areas? Would it enhance the look of the room(s) to add it???</p>
<p>Sometimes the best way to see a room differently is to empty it out. Really. It can be hard to reconfigure furniture in your mind when you can only see it in its current place.</p>
<p>I have painted most of the casings, baseboards, and crown moulding out in white. Definitely helped. We do have crown moulding in living room, dining room, foyer, and upstairs in all bedrooms. I have also added a chair rail with picture moulding boxes below, all painted in white, to the dining room and foyer/staircase. I didn’t paint the doors because I actually liked the color tone (it’s a warm brown, not the dark blackish brown from the 70’s) and because they are pine, which is a very soft wood, they have a number of dings which I think will become more visible when painted. Two coats of primer and two coats of paint was required to cover the trim, and it always seems to chip and require re-touching.</p>
<p>I think the next step is to replace the hardware. Many are loose and wobbily, and what seems to be a protective lacquer finish is worn through and looks unsightly. I just wasn’t sure if the brass finishes would look dated, even if new. If brass is coming back in style as Silpat says then I would be ahead of the curve.</p>
<p>Have you considered new windows? Besides changing and enhancing the look of a room, new windows can save energy. Updated lighting makes a huge difference too. Consider exchanging overhead light fixtures and adding floor lamps with interesting shapes. </p>
<p>We lived in a 1970’s home for 8 years from 1986 to 1994. During that time, we replaced all exterior doors and windows, got rid of the shag carpeting, put hardwood in the living room/dining room, took down a lot of hideous vinyl wallpaper, painted avocado green appliances (would have replaced them if we could have afforded to), replaced kitchen counters and all the pulls on the cabinets and drawers in the kitchen, replaced all hideous mini blinds with pleated shades, ripped out a lot of ugly and overgrown plantings, rebuilt the deck, and totally redid a 20x20 family room (new carpet, walls, curtains, windows, everything).</p>
<p>Then we sold the house and moved into a new one.</p>
<p>Thumper, that makes me tired!!! :)</p>
<p>We did one major project each summer…and all the other things in between. It was a project. I think I mentioned this elsewhere. When we went to sell, we used the same real estate agent who found the house. She came in and said “wow. When you put in the bid on this house, I almost threw up. I guess you had a vision I didn’t have.” </p>
<p>House sold very quickly.</p>
<p>We take the one project at a time approach too, but work on a slower timetable than Thumper1 did!. Actually, the first things we tackled were the furnace, roof, and rebuilding retaining walls in our driveway. I couldn’t help feeling a bit unexcited when showing our home to newcomers…“Want to see our new boiler”. The fun decorative projects didn’t happen until much later. We purchased our home in 1995 and I believe we were the 4th or 5th owners. There were some little upgrades done prior to our purchase, but much of the major things needed to be addressed when we bought.
Actually, we have replaced windows, replaced the rotting wood gutters with the leaf guard type, installed exterior lighting and a little landscaping. Yet to do: replace garage doors, front door, and patio door for energy conservation; rebuild the deck, refinish floors, and finally a kitchen. I thought I would do something smaller and less costly at this point, which is why I was inquiring about hardware and lighting.</p>
<p>My house was originally built in 1886, evidently as an Italianate Victorian, burned down (mostly) in 1913, and immediately rebuilt on the same footprint in a somewhat simpler style. All of the door hardware is engraved brass, every knob and hinge and so on. I’ve never polished any of it–a huge job-- although I do think about it from time to time! It would cost a fortune nowadays. It looks similar to this:</p>
<p><a href=“Products | Baldwin Hardware”>http://www.baldwinhardware.com/products/details/door-hardware/knobs/5067-050.aspx</a></p>
<p>In the late 70s, the then-owners installed some el-cheapo sconces and knobs, all of which were that god-awful 1970s obviously fake antiqued brass. They took the original bin-pulls off the drawers in the built-in china closet in the dining room, and replaced them with (out of scale) “colonial” hardware that would have been appropriate in your house, but not mine. They covered virtually every wall in the house with el-cheapo, hideous vinyl wallpaper (contemplate enormous turquoise cabbage roses with pussywillow on a light brown background and don’t forget it’s vinyl with slubs) , painted trim in oil-based gloss paint in colors like turquoise, and installed burnt orange shag carpet on the back stairs. You get the picture. :)</p>
<p>I reversed most of this as soon as we moved in.</p>
<p>If you are going to replace your hardware, I suggest looking at Baldwin. They make very high quality brass, in a variety of very nice finishes and styles. It is not cheap.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.baldwinhardware.com/products/Door-Hardware.aspx”>http://www.baldwinhardware.com/products/Door-Hardware.aspx</a></p>
<p>A much cheaper source for old looking - and even actual old - hardware is [Historic</a> Houseparts](<a href=“http://www.historichouseparts.com/pdshop/shop/custom.aspx?recid=14]Historic”>http://www.historichouseparts.com/pdshop/shop/custom.aspx?recid=14).We stumbled on this place when we were visiting Rochester to see our kid. (It’s on South Street in South Wedge.) We started by buying a few “decor” pieces like some wrought iron panels for so much less than the price in Boston that we considered “importing” and reselling. Then we decided to replace the absurd doorknobs that had been put on our 1870 house and found they sell repro stuff online in a variety of styles and finishes for not much money. Nice people. Their website can be slow.</p>
<p>[Update: I checked their website and prices are much higher than before but it’s still a good resource.]</p>