Artistic Barn Door Hardware

Sliding doors or barn doors are the perfect blank canvas for dramatic hardware. When the wall opening permits, double doors make a large statement that can be artfully used to separate rooms. Case in point is a recent order for double doors that separated the dining room from the living room by making an artistic reptilian statement.

The iguana door handle is 17”high  7” wide and 3”deep and the scale makes a substantial statement. The piece was designed to be used as a pair for double sliding doors with each  iguana facing the opposite direction to it’s partner. The stylized design has a spiky decorative ridge that extends over the nose and then wraps around the eyes and trails down the front legs.

 The original design was very much influenced by Polynesian art and is not based on any particular type of iguana but does reflect a certain stance or attitude that Martin imagines when he thinks about iguanas. The iguana handle is a relative of the other handles and cabinet pulls that make up the lizard collection of door hardware.  For cabinet sliding doors the iguanas can be mounted so they entwine head to toe with their partner, a positioning that could be problematic on room doors where the tail and feet could catch on clothing.

Barn doors are more easily installed than traditional hinged doors requiring only a simple bracket to be attached to the top of the door and to a wheel that travels along a track screwed to the wall above the door. They also use a simple garden gate or hook style of latch that can be surface mounted as opposed to the tubular latch used on a hinged door that requires the door to be pre-drilled at time of manufacture.

New Carp Fish Door Pull Takes Shape

The design for our illuminated fish handle was a cutout carp fish where sections were removed so that the LED light could shine through to create a colored fish.

We recently had an inquiry for a fish door pull, and suggested we modify the illuminated Carp to make a solid bronze Carp only to find that the client was a restaurateur whose menu included Chinook (King) salmon. As our creative minds were already charged, we went back to the drawing board and decided to designed a new non-illuminated Carp door handle to add to our door hardware collections. As the new handle will be a door pull, we had to redesign our existing carp to make it more 3 dimensional and without sharp fins. As the carp’s distinctive markings would no longer be lit by colored LED’s we had to capture these markings by creating recessed areas that when patinaed will be visible as markings. We are planning to cast the handle in bronze a medium that can be patinaed in dark and light tones through an oil rubbed finish or in a dramatic verdigris or red/brown hot patina.

As the new carp design is smooth and not textured, we may also cast it in stainless steel and powder coat the recessed areas black or powder coat the entire fish using 2 colors one for the recessed sections, the other for the upper surface. Stainless steel is a good alternative alloy to bronze but the 316 grade we use is extremely hard and very difficult to sand and polish. We use this grade as it contains molybdenum which makes the alloy corrosion resistant when exposed to sea air that contains chloride and thus the ideal medium for ocean properties. This medium is less suited to highly textured pieces and explains why our modern door handle designs with their cleaner lines are where we use this medium.

As the carp design was merely 12”in height and as Martin Pierce is a sculptor, he preferred to make this pattern from solid high-density foam.

New Morphic Door Pull - One Size Does Not Fit All

When designing a cabinet pull the smaller size of cabinet drawers and doors requires that the pull be appropriately scaled. The size of the pull should not over-power the cabinetry but at the same time must not appear wimpy.
When we began designing our Ergo collection of contemporary hardware the designs for the cabinet doors were very different to those for the entry and interior doors. However, over time our small 12” cabinet pull has undergone substantial scale revisions and is now available as both a 35” and 54” entry door pulls. The demand for different sizes of this piece continues and we are currently designing a 25” piece. To the untrained eye this may appear to be a simple revision but in reality, the new size will require a three-dimensional pattern to be made so that the newly proportioned piece be as fluid as the original design. The sketch here shows how the scale of the new pull when compared to the 54” pull will look on tall 7’ 5” closet doors.

Left: Doors New 24” High Ergo Pull Right: Doors 35” High Ergo Pull

Our Morphic cabinet pull also lends itself to scale modifications and is currently being re-designed as a 24” door pull. To function well as a door pull, we are modifying the outer edge and straightening the curvature so that it will fit on narrow door stiles. The back of the pull that attaches to the door is a mere 2 ½” and the decorative curved face is 3 ½’.

New Trends in Door Hardware

As a small, hands- on company, it is not difficult to spot trends at their out-start.
This is certainly the case with recent orders for barn door handles that are two tone with black or very dark brown accents. Our large door pulls, or grips are available in silicon bronze, an alloy that is golden or champagne in its unadorned state and in 316 stainless steel, an alloy which is a cool grey when cast.
Both alloys are durable, rust resistant and high- quality mediums but their density dictates how each can be color accented. Stainless steel is a much harder medium than bronze and its surface is more difficult to penetrate so liquid patinas will tend to slough off and not adhere to the metal. While bronze is a strong alloy its surface is easier to buff so liquid patinas can more easily penetrate and bind to the alloy.
Black is the color of choice for most tracking currently being sold for sliding barn doors which explains why we are seeing an increasing demand for black highlights to be added as custom finishes to our steel and bronze door grips. As our large door handles are dramatic organic designs, we feel it is important that the color accent be integrated into the design. When we are adding a dark patina to bronze handles, we immerse the piece in a chemical solution until it reaches the required darkness and then we halt the process by immersing the handle in water. Once dry, we re-work the piece by hand sanding and buffing the piece in select areas to remove the dark patina. The process can be repeated so that different depths of color are created. Once complete the color is fixed with penetrating oils and with a hard-wax topcoat. For high traffic projects the handle can be further protected by baking on a clear enamel coating.

Repeated immersion into patina to develop depth of color - highlights created by removing patina

We add color to stainless steel by baking on a powder chosen for color and iridescence. The handle is buffed or polished to the desired luster and areas that are to be free of color are masked off from areas receiving color. The color powder is sprayed on to the piece and then baked. Determining the accented area is crucial as once baked it is extremely difficult to rework the finish without stripping the piece back to the base metal.