20 ORB Door Knobs for less than $20

        
           When Matt and I bought a foreclosed home in January, we knew we had a year of home improvement projects ahead of us.  After moving in and forking out all of the intial closing cost, our goal was to complete the following projects in one year's time: buy appliances, buy blinds, fix water damage in basement, paint the entire house, furnish and decorate the entire house, update bathrooms, redo kitchen cabinets, update all light fixtures and update all hardware.  Most of the things on our list are small cosmetic issues, but they have certainly consumed much of our time and money this year.  Year two will involve things like replacing the floors and doing some major landscaping.  Bigger projects will include fencing in the backyard and building a better deck and patio area.  And of course, long term projects include finishing the unfinished basement, but for now, we have plenty of smaller projects keeping us busy.
        We were recently at the point in our home improvement projects that we were ready to update the hardware.  We had twenty door knobs to update from brass to ORB, and at $15-20 a door knob, the cost of those door knobs really adds up.  It would have easily cost us around $300 to replace all of the door knobs. 
       BUT....then, I discovered ORB spray paint!  If you'v been around blog land for awhile, I'm sure you've heard of this stuff.  But for those of you who haven't heard about it, I know what you are thinking....spray paint really?  To which I reply....YES, really!  Two cans of paint covered all twenty door knobs.  At $7 per can of paint, two cans of paint cost as much as replacing one door knob.  That's a savings of 95%!  I'm sure your wondering if it looks as good as the real oil rubbed bronze door knobs.   Well, you can tell a slight difference if you hold up the painted door knob to the original - I found that out when I painted one door knob and took it to Lowe’s to compare - but the difference isn't noticeable to the average person entering your home.  In other words, no one is going to notice you used spray paint unless you tell them.  In my mind, that made this spray paint project a huge success! 

I spray painted the door knobs oil rubbed bronze using Rust-oleum spray paint from Lowe's.

Tip: toilet paper tubes help keep the door knobs in standing postion for painting.

After painting one door knob and liking the results, I took off all twenty door knobs and got them ready for their paint job.

Good bye ugly brass......Hello oil rubbed bronze ;)

After letting the door knobs dry for several hours, they were ready to go back on the doors.

I love the updated look, and I think this project turned out pretty good.

Yes, pretty good indeed!  $14 beats $300 any day;)