Picking the Right Handles for Your Home
A house needs many different handles of various sorts. The two main types are door and drawer handles. A homeowner need not settle for whatever handles a house may happen to have, but can, rather, outfit the house with the handles he or she likes. There are a wide range of handles to choose from, of course. Home centres and hardware stores carry a plethora of handles of many different types. They can also be ordered online. The following are some things to keep in mind when picking handles for your home.
Matching Style
If you already have door and cabinet handles in your house that you like, you may want to match them. Matching door handles in older houses is usually more difficult than matching them in new houses, since with new construction the handles will be fairly standardized and widely available. However, it is usually older houses that have handles needing replacement. If the latter is the case, your best bet is to try antique or thrift shops to see if you can find older handles that match the ones you already have. This is hit or miss, but you might get lucky and find the same or similar vintage handles. You can also simply try to find newer handles that look enough like the old ones that they do not clash too much stylistically. Since many handles are designed to look classic, you can often come fairly close.
New Style
Another approach is just to put new handles on all the doors or cabinets that need them, thus maintaining stylistic continuity. Alternatively, you can replace all the handles in rooms that you will spend the most time in or that you feel need the most work stylistically. You need to find handles that will fit the house or cabinet doors that you are dealing with. This is usually fairly easy, since most doors simply have holes into which handles fit and yet which are not the exact size of the handle. They are usually larger and a variety of handles, for both doors and cabinets, will fit into them easily.
Store or Online Purchase
The advantage of purchasing handles at home centres or hardware stores is that you can touch and look at the handles directly and feel their texture. This can be a good thing to do because you will be touching the handles daily if you buy them, and you should get handles whose textures you enjoy. Online purchase is fast and easy however and you can often find a wider selection. There are specialty hardware distributors that sell handles in many different styles and price ranges. If you look at their selections, you may get inspired to buy some especially artistic or classy handles. Keep in mind though specialty handles can cost quite a bit more, so you need to budget for the extra cost, especially if you have many handles to install.
Installation
Most handles can be installed yourself if you are moderately handy. For door handles with locks, you may wish to have a handyman or even locksmith do the installation. This is an extra cost, so make sure to factor it in.
