I had this question recently and thought it was a great one. One of my favorite pieces of furniture is an antique buffet/bar cabinet that we painted white. At some point in the past, it had been painted black, hardware and all. The brass was showing through the black paint in an unattractive way.
To breathe some light back into these cool pulls (instead of replacing them with something generic), I took a bit of sparkly Satin Nickel spray paint and a coat of clear gloss to protect it. I did this pre-blog, so no action shots. First I washed them with dish soap to remove any oil or other gunk that would repel paint. Then, I screwed the hardware into a piece of cardboard and wrapped some scrap paper (torn out of junk-mail catalogues) and wrapped it around the screw as a spacer, securing with tape. I gave it many light coats of Satin Nickel, then several of clear gloss over a couple of days to allow plenty of drying time.
Pst – If you love these knobs, D. Lawless Hardware carries them in brass.
Don’t forget coupon code “remodelicious” for 10% off your order!
Painting the hardware can dramatically update a piece! I’ve heard success stories about painting door knobs as well, although I haven’t had any experience with it myself.
I painted these back in April. This buffet gets light use and they look as great as they did 6 months ago.
Here’s a before picture of this piece.
I’m going to try painting some other hardware soon and plan to use the same paint & method. Check back and keep in touch to see it.
Have you painted hardware? I’d love to see how it turned out! Send me a message – maybe I’ll even give you some bragging room on remodelicious.com!
