Cheap & Easy Home Improvement Tip: Custom Painted Doorknobs

So here is another project we did a little while back that was cheap and easy.  I am going to break this all down for you so you can decide if it is a good choice for your home- plus some directions on how to do it.

Do you have gross brass doorknobs?  Or maybe some other style of doorknob that just doesn’t suit your home?  Well you can fix that for about $4 with just a can of spray paint!

We have disgusting brass door knobs that I hate.  Our home is from the mid-90’s and since we bought it I have been on a mission to tame the brass fixture and oak wood beast. (Curse you 1990’s!)

When we bought the home we had a shoestring budget for repairs and one of the first things I did was spray paint the outdoor lighting from brass to a brushed chrome color.  It turned out ok (certainly better then before) and so when my husband started talking about replacing doorknobs I immediately thought to try painting them.

We counted all the doors and hit the home improvement store and discovered it would be about $250 total for new door knobs throughout the house.  BOO!

And you might be thinking- well who noticed doorknobs anyway so who cares?  But actually this is one of those little details that will really update a home.

I think you might be surprised at what a difference this does make.

So off to the Home Depot and we found about 8 zillion metal tones of Rust-oleum spray paint.  I settled on a Brushed Chrome color that matches the rest of our lighting fixtures and we spent about $4.99 for the can.

Next is just the tedious part.  You need to yank those doors down one by one, remove the hinges, spray paint (we did two coats) and then put it all back together.

• If you want to do this the right way, you will want to remove all the hinges and the door knobs and sand them lightly.
• Next use a primer spray paint for your first coat.
• Third use your Rust-oleum spray paint- you will likely need 2 coats.

We started the project without primer and then when we got our refill can of spray paint halfway through the project the Home Depot guy asked if we needed primer too.  (Doh!)

So we went ahead and finished without primer but considering how tedious this project is, I would definitely do it right the first time and grab the primer too :).

You might find a system to keep track of which hinges and knobs go to which door.  My husband had some sort of secret code written on the boxes to keep track of what hardware went to what door.

One last little tip is that the hinges are sold separately at the home improvement stores.  The hinges are where the most scratches and little dings will likely occur so if you want to invest just a little bit of money you can always buy those and then spray paint the actual knobs only to match.

We just went ahead and spray painted all the hardware.  If we need to replace these door jam things in the future due to scratches and chipped paint that is really something that would only take minutes to do.

So far ours have held up really well!  I figure it is worth it to try the $5 fix before we drop a whopping $250.  We used (2) cans of paint and made it through 12 doors total.

So for us, this project was definitely worthwhile and I hope you consider doing this in your own home!

Oh and you might consider a site supervisor to oversee the project.  Our construction foreman works pretty inexpensively (we mostly pay in biscuits and trips to the park) and he definitely kept things running on time and on budget.

And I hope you will consider following my DIY Tips and Cleaning Ideas Pinterest board for more little tips like this.

And here is a nifty little garage door upgrade you might tackle for about $20!