One thing I hated about my front door was its old and tarnished hardware. Better yet, my tarnished, cheap hardware. I went online to find out what tricks I could use to polish it up and make it at least clean again. I read everything from baking soda, lemons even peanut butter as a solution. But when it comes to cheap hardware, nothing works.
How to update your front door
In Feng Shui the front door is the mouth of chi, life force energy to a home. Tarnished door hardware is a very bad start to introducing good vibes to a home. In fact it leaves a residue of bad energy every time you see it and shrug. So after trying everything to update and reuse the existing hardware, I decided to just replace it.
If your home has been built in the last ten years most hardware off the shelf is considered standard. There are a few things that will need to be tweaked, but it can be easily done. I decided that I wanted a more updated and contemporary look to my home. Ideally shiny brass would have been an excellent choice to introduce abundant chi in my home. However, I hate brass, so I opted for nickel instead.
One thing I underestimated was the necessary tools I would need and the shape of the old hardware compared to the new shape. This required additional painting but wasn’t a big deal because the new look exceeded my expectations.
New door hardware
In order to update your hardware be sure to have a philips head screw driver,a flat head screw driver, a small wrench to remove the door handles, and a drill. I had to screw a hole through my door to accommodate a longer door handle. Also, make sure you set aside at least an hour. It took about 15-20 min to remove the old hardware and then a good 25min to install the new hardware. Plus I had to paint the door, which took another 25 min, which you may not need to do.
Front door
I did not have the same color paint as the HOA’s selected. But I did have an old can of brown paint that probably should have been thrown out years ago. It was a little sticky but it prevented me from having to buy new paint and if you ask me looks close enough. Hows that for bringing in good chi? All in all, the new hardware looks great, functions much better and isn’t scraped and beat up which is a huge improvement.