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<\/a>por Michael Bueno<\/p>\n
An old house may be made up of parts, but we experience it as a whole. Unless one of those parts is giving us trouble, in which case, the problem part (squeaky door, rattling window, fizzling light fixture) is all we see, hear and curse about. This tendency to make the little things the size of small monuments to frustration has a long and storied tradition. Think Jimmy Stewart in \u201cIt\u2019s a Wonderful Life\u201d<\/em> descending the stairs, rounding the newel post and discovering the finial has come off in his hand. By the 100el<\/sup> time this happens, he\u2019s ready to jump off a bridge. Literally. The saddest scene in the movie isn\u2019t the blubbered prayer in the snow, it\u2019s when that finial comes off one too many times and Stewart proclaims, \u201cWhy did we buy this old house anyway?\u201d It\u2019s not a movie about a man in need of divine intervention. It\u2019s about a newel post in need of some glue.<\/p>\n But I digress. Point is, except when they\u2019re leaking, smoking, sparking, rattling in the wind or coming off in your hand, all the various parts that make up your house should blend together into that all-encompassing whole we call home. In the Arts & Crafts tradition, the goal was not to impress someone with the audacity of your financial commitment to your lighting fixtures but to create a sort of pleasant harmony, where nothing stood out, everything went together and people felt at home, rather than bowled over by your pedestal sink. The early 20el<\/sup> century bungalow was supposed to be a refuge from modern life, not a reminder of your monolithic credit card debt. As you walk in the door, your blood pressure should drop a bit, your heart rate ease; you should sink into your club chair and slip into an old house reverie, or at least a nap. You shouldn\u2019t be looking at your hammered brass escutcheon and thinking, I\u2019ll have that paid off in 32 years!<\/p>\n Which brings us to the subject of hardware.\u00a0 Of all the parts that make up your house, large and small, visible and hidden, useful and merely beautiful, hardware is among the most personal. It\u2019s the part of your house you regularly touch. Doorknobs and drawer pulls are part of the interface between human and house. When the hardware\u2019s wrong\u2014when it\u2019s missing, mangled, covered in paint or replaced with something wholly inappropriate\u2014it\u2019s just plain irritating. Not only does it look wrong, it feels wrong. It breaks the whole illusion that your bungalow is a complete environment, something unique and intentional, not just a collection of parts that happened to be close to work and those 37 restaurants serving 742 different kinds of microbrews along 30el<\/sup>, just north and south of University.<\/p>\n So what, exactly, is hardware? It\u2019s doorknobs, escutcheons, rosettes, hinges, strike-plates, sash locks, sash lifts, cabinet knobs, cabinet pulls, push plates, switch plates, mortise locks and various hooks, rods and registers. It\u2019s usually made of metal, sometimes glass, and occasionally plastic. Hardware can be all but invisible, it\u2019s easily taken for granted, but in addition to being useful, and expensive to replace, it\u2019s one of those vintage items that can\u2019t be faked. Either it\u2019s original, an awfully good reproduction, or it\u2019s from Home Depot. And it shows.<\/p>\n In theory, your house\u2019s hardware should tell you something of its history, although in practice\u2026it\u2019s complicated. You might think you\u2019d be able to look at the back of a door escutcheon, for example, and find a date telling you when it was made, or at least, who made it. Guess again. And hinges\u2014shouldn\u2019t they be stamped with the name of the manufacturer, and whether they\u2019re brass or steel or unobtainium? But no. That would make sense. You\u2019d think the style of the hardware would say something about the style of the house, too. But that would be in the Hollywood version. Recently I\u2019ve run into a rash of hardware anomalies. Colonial Revival-style door hardware in an Arts & Crafts bungalow. Art Nouveau drawer pulls in a classic craftsman. Art Deco hardware in a Spanish Revival. It\u2019s irritating.<\/p>\n