pocket door hardware

If you’re looking for pocket door hardware, don’t settle for the flimsy sets at your hardware store. There are a number of vendors out there offering nicer variations of the same shapes – circle, rectangle, square. For each door, you will need two flush pulls and one edge pull. Here are some of the better (modern) ones that I’ve seen. This is the pull that we went with, from Linnea Hardware.

I also liked their square panel pull, but some people may find it a little clinical.

Omnia has some nice ring pulls with concealed screws.

Orion Hardware has this option.

Rejuvenation Hardware has a clean-lined traditional set that looks decent. They also carry some salvaged antique sets, including the occasional Arts & Crafts style pull that would work nicely in a modern setting (if you can afford the $300 price tag).

from the ground up

i’ve been working my way through this blog that covers the building of a modern house – it was syndicated in several places (including livemodern).

Found a great idea for flooring. We have oak hardwood on the main floor and i would love to repeat that upstairs, but i’ve gotten quotes ranging from $10 to $12/square foot for doing the upstairs. not in the budget! Laminate doesn’t do anything for me, cork was too pricy, concrete isn’t feasible. But I loved their solution – sheets of 3/4″ birch plywood cut into squares (i think we’ll do 2′ x 2′) and laid with the grain alternating.

This is their architect’s version (with 4′ squares)

You lay it down – the architect splinthed (sp?) the squares together (routed a groove on the side of one tile, added a sticky-out bit to the side of the next, stuck them together). The homeowner glued his plywood tiles to the subfloor and also nailed them down with brads. I’m not sure what a brad is. Then he finished the wood with multiple coats of polyurethane to protect it, since the veneer is only a thin layer. Plywood is supposed to be a greener choice, given that it uses lots of the less desirable wood as the inside layers of the “sandwich”. Also, shop birch is from the U.S., so lower transportation costs. Best of all? It works out to less than $2/sq foot. There will be an open study upstairs with a built-in desk, and I’m thinking that baltic birch plywood would be a great work surface.

I know I’m skipping ahead to the fun stuff, but I also liked his taste in faucets and door handles. For the kitchen – a pull-out faucet by Grohe (the Minta). It comes in water-saver version.

I looked at Faucet Depot and a few other online stores, but the cheapest option still seems to be on eBay (around $350 before shipping). I’ve had good experiences in the past buying taps online, as long as I had pre-researched in an actual store to check out the ‘feel’ of it and to make sure I had the model # correct. There always seems to be Euro-versions of the same models, and I don’t know if there would be problems with the connecting bits (cross-cultural communication), so figured it was best to avoid the issue altogether.

He also was keen on Omnia door handles. I checked out their website and found this puppy, which I really like.

Emailed them to ask for a local dealer, got a very prompt response. Called for pricing – $130 for a privacy set. Ouch. Of course, I have no idea what is reasonable for a door knob, but I’m guessing that’s way out of line. The store owner I spoke to was very nice and also suggested Linnea as another source of door hardware. I’m sure I’ll find decent handles somewhere. What I was more concerned about was hardware for the pocket doors. Everything I’ve seen in local hardware stores has been very boring and small. I want something easy to grasp (for small hands and big). So, for each pocket door, I’ll need two flush pulls and an edge pull. I like these designs by Omnia.

The rings range from $17 – $19 each, the rectangle is $28. Sounds like a reason for a field trip to me!

Back to packing. The movers are coming tomorrow at 9:00. ack!