Doorknobs update

You guys, I may have discovered my real calling in life: installing doorknobs.  Seriously, I've become amazing at it.  There were some initial hiccups with the chiseling and whatnot, but I've come a long way.  I installed doorknobs 7, 8, and 9 this week, and let me tell ya - it was like a well-oiled machine up in here.  I realize it's kind of a lame skill to have, but I won't lie, it feels good to have basically mastered one DIY skill.

You might be wondering which other doors didn't yet have the new bronze doorknobs because surely I've bored you to tears with all this doorknob nonsense already.  But as it turns out, I hadn't yet done anything to the three doors upstairs, so I took care of that a couple nights ago.  These are the doors to the upstairs bathroom and storage closet, and then the door to the water heater and furnace room.  Here's what they looked like before with the same satin nickel finish as the old ones downstairs:

And now here they are with their nice new dark bronze doorknobs.

I know what a small thing this must seem like, but I honestly can't even tell you how much it pleases me to look at and use these new knobs.  The old knobs weren't horrible to look at or anything, but I hadn't even realized how much it irked me that they weren't quite functional until I got ones that actually were!  And I also hadn't realized how much I would prefer a different finish until I actually installed the first bronze one.  So in a way, I should be thanking Evan for getting himself locked in my bathroom - it put me on the oh-so-exciting new door hardware path that I am currently traveling.

While I'm sure you're not lying awake at night wondering what will happen to the rest of my doorknob project, let me tell you anyway.  No one wants this to be done with more than I, but alas, there's still a few more things to check off the list:

• Replacing the door hinges on all 11 doors.  Of course, they're all slightly different, so just assembling the right parts has been kind of a project in itself.  Plus, 2 or 3 hinges per door makes for quite a few hinges to replace.  I've called in the ladies to help.
• Replacing the deadbolt and keyed lock doorknobs on the two doors that go to the outside.  I'd previously been holding off on these until figuring out if I'd have to get my keys redone (I don't!), and now that I've gotten past that and am actually looking at purchasing, I found out that each set costs $50, and I need two.  Yeesh - over $100 for two doors???  Who knew?  So that's why I'm holding off now, but I'm thinking next month I'll take care of those and finish this up.