knobs!

The guys are here putting in the gas line and I'm trying not to have a heart attack, so I will make myself useful by providing for the blogosphere a pictorial history of the sad story of knobs in our house.

I almost cry when I see the photos other housebloggers post of their old hinges, knobs, and hardware. Restored doorknobs, solid brass and handsome and fitted to nice doorplates on solid wood doors, in particular, make me green with envy. Somewhere in the tawdry history of my house, most of what little ornamentation there was originally had been stripped -- the doors were robbed of almost all of their original knobs. Several of the doors themselves were replaced by hollow core substitutes. So we are left with situations like our front door:

That's the cheapest, shiniest bath door knob available. On our front door.

These are what at first glance seem cool old 50s-style handles on our built-ins. But no. They are cheap silverized reproductions that are peeling and rusting. To add insult to injury, the ones in the back room are cheap brass-ized reproductions.
Oh, you like the mixed brass and silver look? I'm sure you'd love our former kitchen knobs, then. Most were silver (cheap, peeling, various finishes), but the one row of drawers that was painted beige had cheap, peeling brass knobs. Classy. One of the first things we did was replace them with probably cheaper Ikea powder-coated nickel knobs (six for two bucks) that match and will last at least until we can get new cabinets. (I'm kind of making fun of myself and beginning food photography with the picture of knobs in my vintage aqua candy bowl.)

Also, note that the once-beige drawers are now the same color white -- thank you Sherwin Williams' color matching service, Kilz, and mastering a fear of painting laminate cabinet facings.

And why, pray tell, is this wall heater knob on our window sill? Because it doesn't fit the wall heater, of course! The previous owners replaced the original knob with something that doesn't fit, and instead of returning to the store to get the proper knob, they just left it on the window sill when not in use.

And last but not least, the shower knob. On my clothes washer hot water feed.
It's a Moen, so you know it's top quality...er, yeah. And thanks for patching the hole, too, guys. When the washer broke the first time I used it, being a lifer renter, I had no idea that the this contraption was even part of the plumbing, since the cold water line had a regular knob. It was like "stump the chump" for dummies.

And for extra credit, the top photo is the finials for our bedroom overhead lights -- my replacement is on the left.