Okay, picture your bathrooms. In my experience, most bathrooms have SILVER faucets, silver drains, and silver toilet flush handles. But, most also have BRASS door handles and hinges, and often brass cabinet handles.

In my bathrooms, which were like this when we moved in, they have exactly what I mentioned above, as well as brass towel racks. Now, is that okay?? Are you supposed to match all the hardware? I would THINK you are, but toilet flushers and faucets seem SO standard in silver, and hardware seems SO standard in brass! I know they sell brass faucets and two tone silver/brass faucets, but personally I don't care for those. There are also plenty of silver towel racks out there. But you don't find silver HINGES!! And silver doorhandles are also rare, and would look silly in my house, since ALL my doors have the same matching brass handles. Is this mixture just something common and accepted in bathrooms or am I committing a huge decorating sin by not replacing certain things?? It just BUGS me each time I walk in there and see the two colors! It seems wrong... So is it normal?? The mixture of brass and silver I mean, not me. I already know *I* am not normal!!

By Vicki on Friday, March 17, 2006 - 09:46 am:

LOL... I guess I never thought about it before! We built our home about 6 years ago now and we have all brass hardware on everything. Except the kitchen faucet is white because the sink is white. Other than that, all hinges, door handles, drains and bathroom faucets are brass.

By Mommyof5 on Friday, March 17, 2006 - 11:00 am:

That annoys me as well. The fan cover in our bathroom is silver and it sits right next to a light fixture which is brass.....drove me crazy until I made dh "fix" it.

By Crystal915 on Friday, March 17, 2006 - 01:42 pm:

I an a Virgo, matching is a requirement for me. I can't change everything in post housing, but if it were my house I would want all the hardware to match!!

By Conni on Friday, March 17, 2006 - 01:59 pm:

I do think it should match. However, I dont think the door knobs have to match !!!

For example, I would like to update my guest bathroom and I plan to use the rusty or bronzed color fixtures. Do you know what color I am talking about? Anyway, I will change the toilet handle (yes i was pleased to see they sell one that is the rusty or bronze color lol), light fixture, toilet paper holder, towel holder, and the faucet... I have a gold doorknob in their and I wont be changing that.

But thats just what *I* like. I dont notice other peoples when I go to their house to be honest!!!! If it bothers you then change it. Those are simple and *fairly* inexpensive to swap out.

By Reds9298 on Friday, March 17, 2006 - 01:59 pm:

I'm pretty weird about the matching, too! My fixtures in one bathroom are all brass, EXCEPT for the bath tub which we did not replace. No one sees it though unless they're in there so I don't mind it too much.

By Dawnk777 on Friday, March 17, 2006 - 06:34 pm:

I have no idea and I wouldn't care if they don't all match! It's just not that important to me. My towels don't even match up all that well, because it's a sea green and mauve tile, from the 50s' in there. It's impossible to find stuff that matches. No green does, that's for sure. So, I have decided to go with tan towels, because they "go with" nicely. My rugs are tan, too. The curtain and shower curtain are the same and that does matter to me. I couldn't care less about the hardware.

By Kate on Monday, March 20, 2006 - 03:54 pm:

Okay, I took all the brass away, and all is now silver, except for my bright, shiny, brass door handle!! Now that is driving me crazy! But how are you supposed to switch THAT?? It's more important that it match the six doors in the hallway it sits in, than the inside of the bathroom. And now I hesitate greatly to put my silver robe hook on the back of the door since that gold door handle sits there sneering at me...that would be gold and silver on the same door. Sigh. It's bugging me. Help!! Has this always been an issue for people? I just don't remember worrying about it before.

By Emily7 on Monday, March 20, 2006 - 03:58 pm:

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By Crystal915 on Monday, March 20, 2006 - 03:58 pm:

I prefer silver, so if it were ME, I'd just change all the handles to silver. Then again, I hate brass, so it's just my preference.

By Dawnk777 on Monday, March 20, 2006 - 06:31 pm:

I thought you could get door knobs for a bathroom that had brass on the outside and silver on the inside. I think when I was growing up, we had doors like that. I know all my door knobs are brass in this house, though. I'm glad your bathroom is almost the way you want it, though.

By Kate on Monday, March 20, 2006 - 06:47 pm:

Oh, it's not the way I want it, LOL! I prefer silver faucets, yet I prefer brass everything else!! Which is why I'm struggling with this whole thing, LOL! I'm sure I could get a brass on one side, silver on the other side doorknob, but it wouldn't be the same style as all the other knobs in the hallway.

By Ginny~moderator on Monday, March 20, 2006 - 07:49 pm:

Well, Kate, I do think you could get a silver knob for the inside of the bathroom in pretty much the same style, and certainly one that would fit the knob mechanism, without changing the brass doorknob on the other side. I haven't changed doorknobs in a while, but my recollection is that it's probably something you could do. What I'm talking about is just changing the knob on one side of the door. Take a look and see how the knob set is put together, and maybe take it off and take it to Home Depot or Lowe's and explain what you want to do.

By Kaye on Monday, March 20, 2006 - 08:01 pm:

I sit here smiling at the OCD kicking in for you I am the same way, things are just fine, then I notice something off and it just drives me INSANE!!!

Good luck with your door knob!

By Vicki on Monday, March 20, 2006 - 08:08 pm:

Kaye, I am the same way. I am ok until I really notice something and then it will drive me nuts. Funny thing is, I NEVER notice anything at other peoples house the way I do mine!!

By Vicki on Monday, March 20, 2006 - 08:11 pm:

And lets be honest...how many of us checked ours to see if they matched after this post??? LOL

By Ginny~moderator on Monday, March 20, 2006 - 09:33 pm:

Mine all match, but when I went to see how the knob was put on the mechanism I noticed that a screw was coming loose, and had to tighten it.

By Annie2 on Monday, March 20, 2006 - 10:39 pm:

When we renovated our bathroom a few years back we changed all of the fixtures ie: light switches, fan, lights, to chrome but left the door handles on the closets and regular door the same brass, since all of the doors in our house are brass.

By Dawnk777 on Monday, March 20, 2006 - 10:40 pm:

My bathroom is all mixed up. It would drive some of your crazy, but I have already lived here 9-1/2 years! The doorknob is brass on the hallway side and silver inside. The faucets are all silver. The flush handle on the toilet is also silver! However, the cupboard knobs are all white and brass! LOL! The hinges are brass as well.

I don't see it changing anytime soon, because we would have to buy a lot of knobs and they aren't cheap! I've already lived almost 10 years like this and never even noticed!

By Kate on Monday, March 20, 2006 - 11:03 pm:

Well, I've been here since 1994 but it is NOW an emergency issue, LOL!! I recently bought a new faucet and it has a 'presence'. It is large and it just stands out and so that's what made everything come into focus for me.

I'll look for a silver knob for the interior, thanks.

By Kym on Monday, March 20, 2006 - 11:28 pm:

TOO darn Funny, I just spray painted all my hinges to match my new Chrome Door Handles, I found silver ones they were just too expensive to replace all of them so I spray painted them and the little "hole" in the door frame so they all match nicely!

I just had my dh read your thread Kaye, and he said "I guess it's normal for neurotic women" LOL

Mine started by painting my interior doors, the brass handles looked horrible with my new color so I decided to make the switch etc etc!

I will admit I am extremely anal about certain things like wood grains, picture frames, metals, for example, all white appliances with chrome fixtures in my kitchen!

By Dawnk777 on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 12:35 am:

In our last house, DH was nearly done painting the bathroom, when we realized we had never held the paint chip next to the towels. It was horrible. It was so the wrong color.

So, we picked out a new color and DH started over, painting it a much more compatible color. I still can't believe that never occurred to us, until the paint was on the wall.

That was something that had to be fixed. It looked nice when it was done.

By Kaye on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 08:01 am:

Dawn did it ever cross your mind to buy new towels??

I looked at mine too. My 1/2 bathroom is all silver except the door knob. The master is all silver in the toilet closet (except the knob) the sink, the tub, the shower are all silver. They even replaced the interior knobs (pull knobs) to silver. BUT we have 4 lights, 2 over the mirror lights, silver, then one bowl type light that is shiny brass and a ceiling fan that is shiny brass....geesh! The fan works great and is pretty so I won't be replacing it any time soon.

By Vicki on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 08:11 am:

LOL Kaye, I thought the same thing when I read it. I would have just bought new towels rather than painting again. LOL But, I bet you picked out the towels special and decorated around them. In that case, I would have repainted too.

By Dawnk777 on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 11:22 am:

I liked the color of the towels better and didn't really like the paint. Either way, it would have cost us money. I never actually thought of buying new towels! I liked my towels! LOL!