This Old House

I gotta tell you...Ron gets a bee in his bonnet quite frequently. He's a bit like a British Bulldog that's bitten something and doesn't want to let go. He did it with the paneling on the sun porch, he's done it with numerous other things in the past.

I'll give him his due: it almost always pans out. The paneling came off the sun porch fairly easily and only a small part of the wood siding underneath needed repair. The porch looks so much better now that it's the same colour as the exterior of the house.

His newest "project" was to strip off the paint from the hinges, door knobs and locks that we have in the house. We noticed that they seem to be engraved or had some sort of filigree, but the detail was buried under 100 years of paint. He found a video that said all we really had to do was simmer the pieces in hot water and baking soda to get the majority of the paint off.

It can't be that simple, right? Well, actually it was. Sure we needed to pick out some tight spots and brush and scrub a bit, but the majority of the paint lifted right off. We're left with some pretty amazing hinges that strangely don't match...one side has one style and the other side has another. Quirky.

The set on our dining room door is stamped April 3 1877, Pat B. (Patent reference, or manufacturer? Not clear, but patents usually have a number assigned, no?) So, a bit of scrubbing with steel wool, sanding and rubbing with alcohol, some goo gone and a bit of mineral oil later and we have clean hinges of indeterminate metal type. We're pleased, and really, that's the payoff, right?

It's been a pretty cool exercise and no one else might notice, but we love the hardware!