BRASS PULLS AND KNOBS INSTALL

So with a bowl of warm, soapy water, a scrubby sponge ( my fave from here) and a paper towel, I gave it a try.Ī little bit of scrubbing and the patching paste came right up, just as I hoped. It dawned on me that since the paste washed off my fingers with soap and water, perhaps it would wipe off of the drawers as well (just the little bits of excess around the patched hole). While my original plan was to paint the dressers a deep green, I’m really happy with the white for now and want to live with them this way for a while. In my case, I didn’t really want to sand the drawer fronts for fear that it would take off the pre-finished white paint. Usually when you use this patching paste, you lightly sand off the excess and then paint to cover. A putty knife would probably be the tool of choice, but a ruler was right there and I didn’t feel like searching out the right tool, so I just went with it.

The holes were not quite covered after one coat, so I went over it again with a second and this time used a ruler to scrape it flat against the surface. I just dabbed a bit on my finger, sm0oshed it into the hole and wiped the excess away. We had a container of this patching paste in the garage, so I pulled it out and got to work. So for the next diy, I patched the little holes for an (almost) seamless look. And they look so nice on the dressers-turned-desks.Īs you can see, there was one additional problem: the new pulls don’t line up with the pre-drilled holes. I can imagine that the paint will scratch over time and they may not look as good. If these were going to be used in a daily, high-use area – like a kitchen, for example – I might be a bit more cautious about choosing a spray painted pull. How about a little side-by-side comparison:įor just $5 per pull + spray paint, polish and a little bit of time, I am really happy with the results. See the difference? On the left is the paint alone and the right has the polish on it. It doesn’t take much until you have a richer golden/brassy color. You take a glob and rub it onto the surface in a circular motion with a rag. This stuff is basically shoe polish for metal. Something that would more closely mimic the look of aged brass. The gold spray paint ( Rustoleum Universal metallic in Pure Gold) has a pretty champagne-y gold finish and they would have been fine, but I was hoping for something just a bit more patina-ed and worn. It only took a couple of light coats and the pulls were looking more in line with my vision. I rigged up a way to spray them to get even coverage by poking a hole through a cardboard lid and screwing in the pulls as you would on a drawer front. I figured it was worth a try to change the color with my go-to gold spray paint. The size was good, shape was minimal, but color was wrong (they only came in satin nickel). I found a 10-pack of 15″ bar pulls for $49.49. Since I kept coming up short, I decided to improvise with a cabinet pull diy. I just couldn’t justify it for this space. My sister has the same pulls in her gorgeous kitchen and while they are expensive, they are beautifully made, very heavy and true statement pieces. I was hoping for something longer than they offer (ideally 15-18″) and 2. I adore these from Schoolhouse Electric, but there were two problems. I instantly fell in love with the look and wanted to recreate it in the studio.Īfter searching every resource possible online, I found that long brass pulls are crazy expensive. My inspiration for the studio desks was this picture of the same dresser from ikea with brass bar pulls. Now that the pulls are installed, let me start at the beginning and show you how they came to be. Simply find the center of the drawer, mark where the screws will go, drill a small pilot hole and then increase the drill bit to the correct size of the screw.

NOTE: installing hardware should not be this difficult. With 12 million other projects in the house, the drawer pulls kept getting pushed off until my darling husband finally gave in to my constant request and worked his magic.

BRASS PULLS AND KNOBS INSTALL

Regardless, I decided I was not willing to install the hardware on the drawers in the studio because they really needed to be straight and my track record wasn’t promising. How is that possible when you have a template and measure over and over again before drilling? I can not say. I put the cabinet/drawer hardware on in the kitchen and pretty much every one is crooked. It took forever to put them on and here’s why: I’m terrible at it. The drawers in the studio finally have hardware.

Brass pulls and knobs