Random Bits Of Fluff

Thinkin' bout my doorbell, when you gonna ring it?

So, our very old house just got a very new door, and I will post more pics of the awesome new door and the fabulous carpenter who put it in once it is painted. But, in the meantime, we uncovered and cleaned up an amazing antique.

Anyone who has taken the grand tour of our house has been forced to ring our very unique old doorbell. It bolts onto the center of the door with the turning mechanism on the outside, and the bell on the other. It makes the most amazing -and loud- ring! We were worried that it would get broken when trying to take it off the old door, but our amazing carpenter-who will get her own post because she is just that awesome- got it off without any trouble.

The previous owners of the house-or someone in it's past- kept painting over the mount for the bell on the inside, as well as getting paint into the intricate molding on the turnkey faceplate, so we really had no idea what it was made of or what it looked like under all that. You can see the giant white globs on the bell-mount and the red paint on the key in the photos.




But a few layers of metal stripper and some SOS pads later, we uncovered what appears to be copper or brass, and the intricate flower molding on the mount, matches that of the keyplate. And the keyplate which we thought must be black metal, was actually also just grime and paint! We took the whole thing apart and cleaned all the cogs-it is amazing how black they were before we started. And once we cleaned up the back, we could read it, and that date that says "Aug. 1. 93." means 1893-our house was built in 1897, so it might be older than the house!





We probably could have buffed it down to the really shiny metal, but we sort of loved just cleaning it enough to see that it is old, but shiny underneath and we didn't want to wear down any of the molding. We can't wait to paint the door and get the whole thing finished. Uncovering our little treasure was an awesome house-adventure!