Thursday, August 27, 2009

The Handles - Progress (of a Kind)

We went to Leroy Merlin in Bordeaux and there, finally, found a selection of window and door handles that looked interesting but were not an outrageous price. Progress!

The doors and windows come with ready-made holes and key-hole innards. Not being sure whether the handles would fit, we cautiously chose a couple to try.

They look good, but we cannot fit them as the spigots are too long for the doors and need cutting with a hacksaw. Our hacksaw is old and rusty and we've no vice to hold the small spigot steady. Also we need what are called "condemnation" (why for heavens sake?) button locks for the bathrooms, not ordinary keyholes, and that means changing the innards.

We find a condemnation innards in a local DIY shop but its latch front is slightly longer than the hole in the frame of the door and that means carefully chiselling the curved edge of the hole to make it larger. All our chisels are - you guessed - rusty and anyway too large and it takes me about half an hour chipping away with a small screwdriver and sandpaper to get the new innards to slot into the door. More progress!

So back to LeroyMerlin in Bordeaux with renewed confidence for more of the handles we like and a new hacksaw and vice. Forgot to buy a new, small chisel.

One bedroom has a theme of distressed paintwork on the lights, so we get a similar look for the handles. The downstairs doors and windows are solid rustic - so that's an easy choice - aged brass. But ...

... the other bedroom and the bathrooms have shades of grey and steel in the lights and the tiles - suddenly the choice is not so easy - brass looks wrong and I can't find aged stainless steel.

Links:
Too much choice

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