Dressing up Furniture with Hardware

Paris Grey Vintage Dresser

One of my favorite parts to Upstyling furniture, is picking out knobs and pulls. Now sometimes, you get lucky and have a piece with beautiful vintage hardware and you dont have to do a thing. Here I only switched out the top two knobs. The pulls are original.
Other times, I will use the original knobs...but update them. Here, I just painted the pulls the same color as the dresser or at least added touches of the paint color to tie it all together.

Pretty vintage pulls.

Just a light coat of chalk paint to tone down the brass.

Knobs lightly painted for a tone on tone look.

But, sometimes you might have furniture with missing or dated knobs.
So... in this post I want to round up some of my best advice for dressing up furniture with hardware.
Best way to clean dirty hardware:To clean dirty hardware
I like to soak in a bath of baking soda and vinegar and use a old toothbrush for scrubbing if necessary.
To remove paint on knobs without chemicals check out
Familyhandyman.com/doors/how-to-remove-paint-from-hardware
My favorite shops for Hardware:Hobbylobby.com
Great selection, a lot of original styles and all at a great place. Search the site under knobs or pulls. In store, it seems knobs are always 50% off and always check for coupons.
Etsy.com
Etsy is a great source for vintage hardware, beautiful glass knobs and painted knobs. Shop and favorite your most loved sites so you can return again. One of my favorite shops on Etsy for hardware is Etsy.com/shop/Firstfinds
Anthropology.com
Really beautiful knobs but a little pricey. I like to shop discounted knobs when I am in the store and usually I use Anthropology only for pieces requiring a few statement knobs
Best tip of the day…..for Screws to that are too short:One day I was looking for help in Home Depot because my knob screws were too short for my drawers, I was introduced to this product. Maybe I was late to the party, but I had never seen these! Now, I always keep these on hand. These are easily snapped to adjust to your needed length. Click here to see my simple tutorial on cutting these to size.

A drawer with too many holes or holes that are too big:For too many holes or holess that are too big for your screws, you will want to back fill all the holes with a good non shrinking wood fill that holds screws. Look for products like this, that say something like "strong nail & screw anchoring."
Hardware that requires visible screws and does not come with matching screws:Now I did say I liked Hobby Lobby, and I do, but over the summer I ordered these pulls. They are actually a great style and with a great price. However, when I got them, I realized that while they fit the 3 inch hole span in my dresser, they were not designed for regular knob screws. These required 3 small screws to attach them from the front of the drawer and they did not come with any screws! I eventually found these screws would fit but…

But, the holes were too big so I had to fill them in.

Then, I needed more holes too, so I had to mark and drill them.

Then, the screws did not match the hardware so I had to touch them up with metallic bronze paint to get them to match.

But, in the end, I had a dresser all "dressed up" with hardware.

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Duck Egg Glam Makeover

Find beauty in your day!

Debbie

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