A common piece of advice to bring kitchens up to speed quickly is to change out the hardware. I hear it all the time. And it works well! But the most overlooked piece of advice for the whole home is to change out your other hardware, such as hinges, door knobs, and drapery rods. I recently moved into a new house and all of the walls are beige, all the doors/trim are cream, and all the hardware is stainless or nickel (or in some cases, I'm sure they are "silver color", as builders like to get by with these sorts of things). And it's just not doing it for me. Don't get me wrong--silver-colored finishes (chrome, nickel, pewter) are all still current, but thankfully there are more choices for tired design eyes.

Oil rubbed bronze is a good choice for any design style, and brass is edging back into the picture (although for all of you that still have brass hardware from the 80s and 90s, that's not quite what we're talking about, so don't get excited). But what I'm really digging these days is matte black. Especially against the crispness of white with a minimalist design scheme. I just drool over it! And thin black window mullions? Don't even get me started. There's a house downtown with two big huge windows that face the street with black mullions. It makes me want to sell this house we just bought and move into that one just for the natural light and black mullions. But that would be impractical. And probably expensive. As for this house, I'm very tempted to go around house and spray paint all my door hardware (anyone ever done that? I'd be curious to know how it actually turns out before I commit).

Here's a few examples of products and spaces that really excite my design senses. Click on the images for the source.