Front Door Furniture:
Choosing A Finish

We’re proud to offer our quality front door furniture in a wide range of finishes, but we appreciate that making the right choice for your door can be tricky! Whether it’s posties, passers-by, or guests, your front door represents your home to the outside World.

Once you’ve spent hours poring over paint swatches to pick the perfect hue, and decided which fittings you actually need, choosing the right finish will tie all of your door furniture together and ensure a cohesive look. Whether you’re showing off your personality with a bold pop of colour, or staying true to your period property with a traditional green or black, we’ll explain the three main factors to consider when choosing a complementary finish for your door:

Generally, cool tones (like nickel, chrome and pewter) pair well with light colours, while warm tones (brass, bronze, aged brass) pair well with deep, rich tones.

Of course, there are no hard and fast rules – it’s your door. Generally, we recommend aiming for contrast and compliment – the door furniture should stand out against the door colour, but it shouldn’t clash with it.

Most of our finishes have either a polished, brushed, or ‘weathered’ texture. A shiny, polished surface will add a bright, crisp feel to your door, while more rustic properties will benefit from a softer texture.

Our Satin finishes (Satin Nickel and Satin Brass) have a brushed, textured surface but still maintain a bright appearance. These finishes are a great option if you want something slightly softer than polished, without looking too rustic.

A finish like Distressed Antique Brass or Pewter has a more heavily textured surface, which gives lovely depth to pieces and looks at home on more rustic properties. Remember that a polished surface will show fingerprints more easily, but these can be easily polished off, whereas a textured surface is more forgiving.

While considering the maintenance requirements of each finish isn’t quite as exciting as colour and texture, this is a vital step. Being honest with yourself about the level of maintenance you want to put in will ensure your door furniture looks its best, and lasts on your door for years to come.
Polished finishes (Polished Brass, Polished Nickel and Polished Chrome) are the easiest to clean as they can take a good amount of elbow grease and a polishing agent. However, these finishes will require fairly regular polishing if you want to keep them looking shiny.

If you’d prefer a ‘fit and forget’ finish, we recommend an aged finish such as Distressed Antique Brass or Aged Brass. These finishes are applied with a weathered, ‘lived in’ look, and they’ll continue to age and develop over time. There’s no need to clean these finishes (in fact we recommend against polishing as this can remove the applied finish!), so you can leave them to age gracefully.

For homes in coastal or high pollution locations, a robust exterior finish will prevent deterioration of fittings caused by environmental factors. Fortunately this doesn’t mean you have to compromise on style, thanks to our Exterior Beeswax and Marine Grade Stainless Steel finishes.

Keep these points in mind for fittings that bring you joy every time you come home for years to come. If you need inspiration, why not peek at our customer gallery? Still feeling overwhelmed by all the choice? Our friendly sales team will be happy to help – do get in touch for advice and suggestions.