Help deciding on knobs

[msmorgan]

Anyones opinions would be much appreciated. I need to get all the door knobs and handles ordered today and can't decide.

The house is a 1930's semi, I can't get the handles I love due to cost so I'm thinking of having quite plain deco (ish) style handles upstairs and knobs downstairs. I can't decide between chrome or satin chrome, the knobs would be a chrome rose with a black ceramic knob.

If anyone with 4 panel 30s doors can give me some ideas that would be great.

Look at IronmongeryDirect

If you want knobs rather than lever handles, you need a long backset on your latches or sashlocks. Three inches is the absolute minimum, but four or five inches is better if your doors have wide enough styles. If you use the common 65mm latch, you knuckles will bang on the doorframe when you hold the knob.

You can easily get three inch tubular latches, and four or five inch from specialist suppliers.

We have one over three panelled internal doors in our 1930s house - originals, some had been boarded over in the 60s.

I have restored the metal rimlocks and the wooden door knobs - stripped the white gloss paint off etc. The door knobs are kind of like a pear shape. I've stained the good ones to match the banisters and used matt varnish to protect them. We still need to replace the roses on the non lock side of the doors, but I'm thinking of wood stained to match the knobs rather than metal. I have had to replace some too - we had no kitchen door when we moved in and the dining room had been messed around with and had a completely different kind of door knob and no rimlock. I scour eBay from time to time and have sourced exact matches, sometimes restored and sometimes not.

Thanks, that is one of the sites I've been looking at, and handles4homes and Screwfix.

Our joiner also mentioned that about knobs which is why I'm sticking with handles upstairs as we're not changing those doors and there are handles currently on.

I'm just struggling to make a decision on which knobs are most in keeping with the 1930s house and four panel doors. I haven't got time to bid on ebay for original Bakelite knobs.

Thanks

I asked for our doors and handles out of a skip from the house across the road.
Excuse the messy paint, we plan to get them dipped at some point.

I'd get the ones with the least shiny rose if I were buying or wait for one of the neighbours to renovate

Thanks Wowfudge, are your wooden knobs plain? I've seen some reeded wooden knobs on various metal roses (not sure if rose is the correct term?) which I like but they 're described as Victorian. I've seen lots of lovely wooden and bakelite original knobs on ebay but I've left it too late if I want the joiner to fit them at the weekend.

I have managed to strip the paint off and restore all the original copper cupboard latches and they look lovely so I'd like nice door knobs. Dh is saying no to some £40 per pair knobs and handles I like as it would be over £600 and we are trying to keep to around £2-300.

They look lovely Whatwouldflopdo, are they wooden? I think the reason I can't decide is because I'd rather get some originals. I might get decent handles for upstairs and temporary cheap knobs for down and start looking for some nice originals.

It's so much easier, quicker and cheaper buying new stuff but it 's never as nice. I might regret the reclaimed front door when it takes me hours to restore and paint it though!

As far as I know they're originals, handles and hinges. I was very lucky, I went running over as soon as I saw! I was gutted that DH didn't take his screwdriver to get the handles off the doors we didn't need for upstairs. We've got crappy black plastic ones from screwfix up there til I find some more.

I think ours was the last house in the street with anything much original left. We've tried to keep and restore what we can but all the downstairs doors were vile 60s glass doors. We've replaced with new 30s style panel doors.

Do the crappy black plastic knobs work ok? I might just get some of those put on until I obtain 6 original pairs. Is changing knobs over fairly easy?

Have you had a look at toolstation for something like this
www.toolstation.com/m/part.html?p=36346
To tide you over til you can find what you want?
I don't know how the inner gubbins work though, or if it's suitable, but its an inexpensive look a like if you were to wait for bakelite to come up.

Scratch that, they are just knob knobs without any inner ribbons, sorry.

Gubbins not ribbons. I'm going to get an award for most consecutive posts.

Yes, they work fine, but they're UGLY!
www.toolstation.com/m/part.html?p=10825

Those tool station knobs look ok, can't believe how cheap they are! That would make spending a lot more on the upstairs handles ok and give me some time to find some nice originals. Thank you.

WhatWould's look like Bakelite. Ours are like these - very similar, but I've restored ours.

I think we've got some bakelite ones somewhere - we ended up with a full set of one over 3 doors and all the knobs, which are different from our originals, when we needed one replacement door for our kitchen. The bloke was replacing the whole set and selling them as one lot on ebay. I'll try and dig them out later [disclaimer - they are somewhere in the garage, goodness knows where] and post a photo. We gave our next door neighbour a couple of the doors as he is renovating his house.

I think I'll have to sit tonight and hsve a look on Gumtree and ebay for originals.

I'm now wondering if the deco style handles I was planning on having upstairs will look strange being totally different to downstairs?