In a previous home, my ex and I went to the trouble to replace the cheap hinges on all the interior doors with higher quality hinges, and I cannot tell you what a huge pain that was. If I were you, I wouldn't bother - especially since you say your present hinges have developed something of a patina so that they aren't shiny. I don't think what you're considering is a decorating faux pas at all.

The vast majority of houses are built with factory pre-hung doors with a brass hinge. I think it is something that just disappears because we are so used to seeing it.

I don't think its a faux pas to leave it that way.

I just replaced all the doors on my second floor (there are only 5), and because they came as "blanks" (not pre hung) in THIS instance I got matching hinges and door hardware. But to go through and retrofit...I am not sure the results would be a reflection of the effort. Most people will notice a nice knob set, but not hinges.

My house is not elegant, or large, but I'm trying to make it "nice." Colorful, comfortable, user-friendly, and "nice."

I have three room doors close together at the end of the main hall. All the doors in my house are getting lever-handle knobs with brushed nickle finish.

The original den and craft room (bedrooms in their former lives) doors have aged (60+ years old) heavy, thick brass hinges. The bathroom door is a new, prehung door. I ordered it with nickle hinges to match all the new nickle lever-handle door knobs I'm installing.

I'd love to replace all the hinges in the house, but this is far beyound my capabilities and so low on the list of priorites I can't even see it.

I'm looking forward to seeing all the responses on this thread. I may glean some great ideas, or decide I have to change the hinges afterall.

When we moved in all our doorknobs and hinges were ugly brass (shiny, scratched, 20 year old brass). My dh changed every round doorknob to levers and every set of hinges to ORB. He had the hinges down to a science at the end, and the kids would time him to see how fast he could do it! He didn't do them all at once though, just a few each weekend. We did change the doorknobs first to ORB; the brass hinges really stuck out to us, but it sounds like we have different brass.

I second what darenka suggests. We replaced all of our hinges to match knobs and there were a lot of them. It is really easy. You do not take the door down, just relplace one hinge at a time while still hung. Since they are already dulled down though from age I don't think they will stick out if you opt not to replace them.

I will admit, it's a particular twitch of mine to see doors with one color knobs and another color hinges - TO ME it smacks of a lack of attention to detail and sloppiness. We redid our entire house's doors' knobs and hinges when we put it up for sale and as kiko says, you get it down to a science real darn quick. In fact, with the help of a couple of handy phone books and a power screwdriver, DH rehung most of the doors solo in a few minutes each. It took part of a day, maybe 6 hours, to do about 15 doors. One of the tricks we came up with was to take ALL the doors off, labeling them with painter's tape as to where they belonged, and bringing them to a central location. We set up an assembly line sort of thing, me taking off hinges and DH putting the new ones on.

Ebay is a great source for cheap ORB hinges - at places like Lowes you'll spend $6-7 apiece, I spent about a buck and a half each.

There are very few things that really make me go "ack" but that's one of them.

And then there is the chea....errrr....budget way of changing those hinges.....paint!

Yea, I know, it's not nearly as neat as being able to buy all new hinges but in my case it was the wallet that dictated how I changed those hinges that always caught my eye.

We redid the little tiny master bath (it used to be a 6' x 9' closet before the previous owners turned it into a bathroom) and being it was the only place I have some privacy and peace and quiet in my house, I wanted what I wanted.

That meant I saved for weeks (and sacrificed a few 'needs') to afford the ORB cabinet knobs with matching sink and shower fixtures and ORB door knob.

When it was all done, my eyes didn't go to all the shower and wall tile we had painstakingly laid ourselves or the the ORB shower fixtures including the adjustable hand-held on a bar. Noooooo......
My eyes went straight to the shiny brass hinges.

A couple of good, small white nylon craft brushes, a sheet of fine sandpaper, a little bit of primer for shiny surfaces, a small craft-size bottle of very dark brown paint with a couple drops of red craft paint added and some water-base brush-on sealer.

Yes, it's time consuming but not hard at all.
At least when I was done with the 3 door hinges and the 8 cabinet hinges, my eyes didn't immediately go to the shiny brass anymore.

It's been over a year and so far the hinges have no chips or areas where the paint has come off.

It's all in the prepping of the shiny hinges and a lot of patience....oh, and a handful of Q-tips to clean up any oopsys, but as I said, not hard at all.

Small details can make a big difference. Change the hinges, it's not that hard. Pull out the pins, take down the door, replace the hinges, then put the door back. All you need is a screwdriver. If they are solid doors you might need two people.

Hi Carole, I did the ORB in my new home, hinges and knobs~I know it can become quie expensive when you figure 3 hinges per door. Why not just spray paint them a flat black? It wouldn't be obvious at all, and I have the proof! All of hardware had been installed before my walk thru. As we were walking thru one of the upstairs bedrooms, the young supervisor who was overseeing the project said to me, "by the way, we didn't order enough ORB hinges, so we spray painted the bedroom and closet door ones, which we'll replace". If he hadn't said anything, I wouldn't have known.

Save a little money and spray paint them. ;o)

I thought about painting them, but then I figured if I had to take them off to paint, I might as well replace them.

I didn't think of the fact that I could do them one by one. That is an EXCELLENT idea in my book! They're solid 6 panel doors and very heavy and my DH is not inclined to spend a day doing something like this. In his book, the knob still opens the door and the hinges hold the door to the frame, so why change them?!!

Reading Darenka's tips about changing one hinge at a time has me thinking I may be able to switch mine out!

It has been nagging at me that they don't match the new door levers; I just didn't think I could physically change them.

I'm going to measure them carefully and try doing "just one" to see how it goes.

We're in the same boat ... we are changing only the hinges that show in public areas, you know, where the door opens out. Coat closet, basement, garage. But not the ones that are only noticeable from inside the door (bedrooms, bathrooms).

One day we might, but it just doesn't bug me that much. Our new ones are ORB, our old ones are 30-year-old antiqued brass, so there isn't a huge difference, like if the hinges were silver or polished.

I have the same dilema, I am building a home and have 16 doors with 4 hinges on each door (8ft doors), all of the handles/door knobs are ORB but uggh I just noticed all the pre hung doors have brass hinges...I am going to have to buy and change out 64 hinges. I wish I could live with the brass but I know myself and my OCD will get the better of me...like Kiko said I'll do a few doors each weekend.

We changed all our door handles and hinges from brass to ORB. We bought the hinges from ebay and they were very inexpensive. As a couple others have said there is no need to completely take down the doors. You can change out each hinge one by one while the door is still hung. It would bother me to see nonmatching hinges and doorknobs.

Let's put this in perspective. Armed with a good electric screwdriver, I can change 70+ hinges in under two hours without help, by leaving the door in place and changing those hinges one at a time. Even with a normal screw driver, I suspect you could do it in less than 4 hours, but I always go for the lazy easy way myself. I'm not trying to set speed records, that's just about how long it takes. It bothered me enough at my sister's house, the I bought hinges, and replaced them everywhere but the front door in the time it took her to go to the gym and the grocery store. The front door (probably close to 80lbs) had a different shaped hinge so I had to use a trim router to fix that purchasing mistake or I would have been done before she returned.

We did a combination of "on the frame" and "off the frame" when we changed out our hinges. Like mari, I cringe when I see different finishes on doorknobs or handles and their hinges. But that's just my peccadillo. And a power drill or electric screwdriver makes the job 10x easier.

What are ORB hinges?

Never mind.....I figured it out!

This post was edited by seaswirl on Thu, Apr 11, 13 at 16:13

Another vote for "Change them all. Not that difficult.Buy them on ebay"!
We've done it for our last three houses.

We changed ours, too. Well, most of them. Still need to do a few more, but just haven't gotten around to it. Really not hard if you do them one at a time.

My Problem is the bathroom door in the hallway is always open. the rest of the doors in the hallway are brass as are the hinges so I don’t know what to do with the hinges and the doorknob for the bathroom which is chrome