Winner winner chicken dinner!

I said I'd wait until Christmas to get hardware when I saw how much the hardware I liked cost (my first estimate was $97 - kind of a lot when you have perfectably serviceable hardware).

But then on my way back from the dentist last week, I had this brilliant idea. Since we weren't really sure what hardware we wanted, we should try out some of the styles. (I say we pretty much in the royal sense, because Andrew wasn't really seeing a need for new hardware).

Sadly, I forgot to take pictures of the contenders. I really loved the look of bin or cup pulls, and thought that was the direction we were headed. And I really liked antique bronze or oil rubbed bronze.

But in my random grab of hardware at Menard's, I spied a style that was decidedly mission and decidedly cheaper than its mission-style peers. And it was "antique pewter" in color, a finish that neither Andrew nor I had considered.

The second I held them up to the drawers and cabinets, Andrew and I were completely on the same page (and he didn't even know they were cheaper!)

Hello, gorgeous!

But somehow, even though the pulls were on supersale ($2 instead of the $5-6 ones I'd thought we'd like), the knobs (since we need 14 of them) were bringing our total up to $75. Yuck.

So I returned all of the mismatched hardware - with that cash refund, I bought 7 more of those super cheap pulls since the sale was ending soon (Total of about $18 after tax).

And of course Andrew went to work putting all those handles on, since I'd totally made a mess of measurement back in 2008 when we moved in. Because the handles had holes for 3in and 96mm (and most of my drilling previously wound up somewhere at 3 1/4in - I have no idea how the precious handles somehow attached somewhat correctly), Andrew had some seriously odd measurement math to do. 

Most of the drawers use the 3in hole on the left and the 96mm on the right (sorry to whoever buys our house someday..I really hope you like arts and crafts style, which you should if you are the someday owner of our house). But, it worked to attach the handles with no evidence of my prior handiwork.

If you are playing along at home, we now have lovely antique pewter arts and crafts-style drawer pulls and brushed nickel knobs. Which leaves us with this awesome look:

Pretty, eh?

Because I am a super competitive shopper, of course I found those antique pewter hammered knobs way cheaper. After slogging though pages and pages of hardware outlets, Amazon, Wayfair, etc - I found the cheapest price at Lowes.com. Where I happened to have a gift card with a remaining balance on it. Yes!

Luckily, I called the store first and learned that those knobs are a special order item. So I special ordered them online with my gift card. And...they aren't slated to arrive for nearly 2 weeks.

With my gift card, though, I ended up spending a total of $30 for new hardware, which means for less than $100 total and a lot of elbow grease, it's going to look like I have a brand-new kitchen...

...in 2 weeks.

We have another small project to do tonight (lazy Susan will go back to being useful! Hooray!) 

and after that, I guess I'll just be sitting in my kitchen imagining how those pretty new hammered pewter knobs will look...

...in 2 weeks.