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Friday, April 29, 2016

Free Hardware Friday #21

THIS PROMOTION HAS ENDED. PLEASE CHECK BACK NEXT WEEK.

Good Morning! I'm a little slow today but I've got a great piece of hardware for today! Today's promotion is open to everyone, but if you are a repeat participant please make sure I've gotten back pictures from your other projects. I don't mind and actually enjoy repeats as the photos tend to be higher quality, but I also have a limited budget and need to spread the hardware around. Thanks!

The rules are the same as every week....

1. E-mail me at the address on the bottom of the post with your name, address, the product number, and how many you need.

2. Please put in writing what you plan to use the knobs for and also give me permission to use your photos to market the knobs. I might put your pictures up on our HomeTalk account, Facebook, or website. If you click our HomeTalk link above you can see a lot of the projects completed by Free Hardware Friday participants over the last couple of months.

Complete these two tasks and get as many of these knobs as you need totally free including free shipping. Totally free!

Today's knob is a nice simple little satin nickel "Sweepy" knob from Liberty Hardware...


If you would like to participate e-mail Derrick at lawlesshardware (at) gmail (dot) com!

Thursday, April 28, 2016

DIY Pneumatic Tube System


Two of the D's in D. Lawless, Dane and Dave, teamed up to create this pneumatic tube system for our hardware department. The ladies needed to be able to send papers back and forth without all the hassle of going up and down the stairs to our pick room. My Dad and I decided we could save them the trouble with a pneumatic tube like you would see at your local bank. Below is the result from start to finish of our DIY pneumatic tube system journey.

                           

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

April D. Lawless Blog Features

Every month for the last couple years we've been growing and we owe a debt of gratitude to the great bloggers and DIYers that we've had the pleasure of working with. The traffic we get from these posts is just a small part of the benefit we get from all these features. The main benefit is the beautiful photos of our products in use for our website. These photos stay up for every visitor to our site and make a huge difference as we are a relatively unknown company and the recommendation and photos really puts skeptical customers at ease! I'm not blowing smoke when I say we lose sales all the time because our prices are TOO LOW. People seem to think they can't get quality hardware at our prices and these articles and photos prove that wrong!

I've put together a big list of all the places we were featured just in April. I think I'll start doing this every month as a way to show off our company as well as the great blogs I get to work with. April was a busy month so I'll just get started...

First post of the month came from a long time partner of ours, That's My Letter. We've worked with Jaime on a ton of projects and you can see her work all over our website. The picture below is from a project she did for Build Something and features our label holders and small oil rubbed bronze knobs.

DIY 16 drawer dresser free plans


The next post comes from another long time partner of ours at Evolution of Style. Jenny used our hardware to update a oak kitchen and the results are beautiful! There have been a couple of projects from Evolution of Style this month as you'll see coming up.

Oak kitchen Refresh - D. Lawless Hardware


As I said before, I'm a lucky guy to get to work with such talent and I love all my long term relationships! It's a great help to my business to know I'm going to get quality photos and articles from my regulars and Stacey at Embracing Change is no exception. Our glass knob section has picture after picture from Stacey and each one really shows off our glass collection wonderfully. Below is our white glass cabinet knobs on a white trimmed distressed dresser makeover.

Apron Strings Dresser - Embracing Change

Until I started this article I didn't realize how dependent I am on my regulars! Here's a great project from one of the first bloggers I ever had the pleasure of working with at Primitive & Proper. Cassie does amazing work and it's quite the privilege to get to use her photography all over our website! Here she uses some of our hand painted ceramic knob collection on a lovely mint dresser.

Sweet Mint Dresser with colorful knobs

Although I love working with my regulars I of course am always ready to start new relationships with new bloggers or simply bloggers that are new to me. This project from A Hopeful Hood shows how easy it is to update interior doors with new door knobs and paint. Unfortunately we may not be carrying the Copper Creek line much longer, but they are still available for now.

White trim, brushed nickel hardware // easy upgrades for interior doors

Sometimes we don't play a big part in the projects but it's still nice to see our hardware being used in beautiful homes and projects all over the country. This project from Sarah M. Dorsey Designs doesn't have much to do with hardware but our stainless steel bar pulls top it off nicely. The project is a DIY barn door for the bedroom and it looks fantastic!


As I said before, lots of projects we help out with don't really have much to do with us. But sometimes the hardware is still an important detail. Here's a great example of that from The Painted Hive out of Australia where our little brass label holders are the perfect touch of shine to a coastal bedroom makeover.

Brass Label Pulls | The Painted Hive

I told you I have regulars! Here's another one from Stacey at Embracing Change using our clear glass cabinet knobs!

Mora Dresser - Embracing Change

One of my new partners is Thea from Sweet Tea Refinishing. Thea got really creative and painted our antique brass drop pulls to better match the color scheme of her most recent dresser makeover. The result is perfect!


Another new partner just used our clear glass knob collection on a beautiful bright white desk makeover. This is a really stunning project and I love how our clear glass knobs look with the bright white background. Check out Virginia Sweet Pea for the full project!

Desk Makeover - A desk gets a feminine makeover with white and gold paint and glass knobs.  virginiasweetpea.com

Another first time partner that I got to meet through our Free Hardware Friday promotion comes to us from Architecture of a Mom. Rachel wrote in and claimed enough of these sunflower knobs to use on a quick dresser update that you can see by clicking through to her blog.


The pretty projects are always fun, but hardware is about being functional before it's about being beautiful! Or I guess it is...lol! This project from Design Dreams by Anne is a perfect example of how a project can be functional and still maintain it's beauty. Anne took advantage of our black gate latches and used them to update her entrance.


This month we got another double dip and this time from Evolution of Style! Great use of matching satin nickel hardware in this kitchen update from Jenny!

IMG_2072-wm

And finally, this project from Plum Doodles shows off a wonderful use of our applique collection and shows everyone how to easily update plain old mirrors or trim. I love the way Sheila uses our appliques and her pics really help sell them at our low price. She proves quality appliques can be bought for cheap and we really appreciate her work!

How to Add Decorative Detail to Mirrors- Position Wood Applique on Frame- PlumDoodles.com

April still has a few more days but if we get more projects in I'll just push them into the May article. I'll be doing this as a series for now on because I've got to leverage all this great content in every way I can! :) If you'd like to work with me just get in touch!

Monday, April 25, 2016

Quadrant Hinge Installation for Jewelry Boxes

The quadrant hinge can be one of the most tricky hinge installations. The quadrant hinge is a complicated L-shape commonly used on jewelry boxes, cigar humidors, and other fine small wooden boxes.

As pictured, quadrant hinges are installed in the rear corners of a jewelry box and serve both as a lid support and hinge. Now let's get straight to the installation.

Since the retainer portion of the hinge must recess into the sides of the box, a drill press or small router bit is required to create this recessed area. The picture below illustrates the type of router bit that can be used. The sections of the hinge running along the sides of the box and lid will require a mortise the exact shape of the hinge wing and must be appropriately deep as well. If done properly, this will have the hinge sitting flush with the top of the box and the bottom of the lid.

Free handing this mortise cut is not advised. Set up a simple straight line guide for your router with some scrap wood. Here is a link to someone that has already set up a jig or guide to help you install your quadrant hinges: http://lumberjocks.com/JakeBrain/blog/23937

This jig will take a few minutes to set up, but it will save you from ruining your box with a sloppy mortise. Measurements are of the up most importance. The first step is to determine the depth of the cut. Figure in the gap you want between the box and lid and subtract this from the barrel diameter of the hinge and divide the result in half. The router cutter should then be set to this depth of cut.

Carefully line up the lid with the bottom and mark the areas to be routed with a pencil.

Now measure the box side and set your router against a straight fence to ensure a smooth straight cut up the center of this thickness. This setting will make a mortise for the forward arm of the hinge on the upper edges of your box.


PRO TIP: Remember when using a router with the fence on the right hand side the router must be pushed away from the body and when working from the left hand side the cut must be drawn towards the body.

Point A in the picture above illustrates the end of this cut and is measured off the hinge for allowance of half the barrel hinge to project out of the back of the box. This can simply be marked off.

After these cuts are made you can reset the fence to make a short cut at Point B. The fence will be set against the edge of the box and will be long enough to define the third cut.

The third cut will connect the other two with the fence setting against the back of the box.

The pocket cut will provide equal depth in both the box and the lid. As with the first cut, you'll need to set the fence to cut along the center of the box edge. An approximately 3/16" router bit will generally work for this. You may want to make a few passes to ensure a smooth cut due to the depth required.

PRO TIP: This final cut will be covered by the hinge and you should be able to freehand its length, but know that if it is longer than needed you'll lose crucial wood in front of the forward most screw.

Now that you're finished hopefully the hinge will fit into the pocket and install correctly. The hinge should screw into place and operate without binding.

If you intend to install these hinges regularly, crafting a template to fit the hinge size will save a lot of time with subsequent installations. 



gold plated quadrant hinges

Gold Plated Pair of Quadrant Hinges from D. Lawless












Friday, April 22, 2016

Free Hardware Friday #20

THIS PROMOTION HAS ENDED. PLEASE CHECK BACK NEXT FRIDAY.

Good Morning! Thank you to everyone that has been participating over the first four months of our promotion! We've gotten a lot of great pictures and posts all over social media and I consider this to be quite the success. In fact, for a small business like us it has possibly because a bit TOO successful. The last couple weeks I've given away nearly 40 orders of free hardware and it's come time to start limiting the participants to a degree...

THIS WEEK IS OPEN TO NEW PARTICIPANTS ONLY. I have no regrets of the orders I've sent out, I enjoy working with all, and I REALLY appreciate all the people that have helped spread this promotion. But we have a limited budget and I'd like to spread it around to as many people as possible. I hope everyone understands and I'll open it back up to past participants soon.

Other than being limited to new participants, the rules are the same as every week....

1. E-mail me at the address on the bottom of the post with your name, address, the product number, and how many you need.

2. Please put in writing what you plan to use the knobs for and also give me permission to use your photos to market the knobs. I might put your pictures up on our HomeTalk account, Facebook, or website. If you click our HomeTalk link above you can see a lot of the projects completed by Free Hardware Friday participants over the last couple of months.

Complete these two tasks and get as many of these knobs as you need totally free including free shipping. Totally free!

Today we have two little cupboard knobs from the Betsy Fields Collection of Liberty Hardware...


One in black...

black betsy fields knob

And one in blue...

betsy fields knob

Write me at lawlesshardware (at) gmail (dot) com to claim your free hardware and participate in Free Hardware Friday!

Thanks everyone!

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

D. Lawless Partners with Abandon Art on Dressers

Abandon Art takes old furniture and gives them a unique touch that adds a bit of style and accent to each piece. D. Lawless partnered with Jeannie Smith and her daughter Katherine. Jeannie runs the creative side of the business refinishing, staining, and painting the furniture makeovers with her custom chalk formulas, while Katherine searches secondhand stores and thrift shops for the right pieces.

This first dresser features a beautiful custom paint job in a very unique blue or turquoise hue. In the following pictures, our D. Lawless line of glass knobs were added in a sun aged color to add the finishing touches to the dressers.


turquoise dresser


dresser and glass knobs

sun-aged glass knob

The second dresser features a white border with a light stain on the drawers and includes the same glass knobs for accent.

glass knob



white and brown dresser


Both dressers look beautiful and ready for resale. From thrift shop to art shop, we are proud to support local businesses by providing these dressers and many more to come with a finishing touch or accent with our hardware.

Please check out Abandoned Art Shop at their Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/abandonedart

And if you like those sun-aged glass knobs here's a link to where you can buy them at D. Lawless http://www.dlawlesshardware.com/anresuglknk3.html

Friday, April 15, 2016

Free Hardware Friday #19

Hi, I'm Dane and I will be taking care of Free Hardware Friday this week! New email address to send your requests to at the bottom.

THIS GIVEAWAY HAS ENDED

The rules are the same as they are every week...

1. E-mail me at the address on the bottom of the post with your name, address, the product number, and how many you need.

2. Please put in writing what you plan to use the knobs for and also give me permission to use your photos to market the knobs. I might put your pictures up on our HomeTalk account, Facebook, or website. If you click our HomeTalk link above you can see a lot of the projects completed by Free Hardware Friday participants over the last couple of months.

Complete these two tasks and get as many of these knobs as you need totally free including free shipping. Totally free!

The hardware for the day ?

This beautiful Liberty Hardware satin nickel ridged knob


Check it out on our website here: http://www.dlawlesshardware.com/ridknobl32.html

Email me dlawlesscompanies (at) gmail (dot) com

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Recent Customer Projects - 4/14/16

This will be a short post content wise as I am feeling a bit lazy! So I'll just let these beautiful customer projects speak for themselves! Featured are projects by Amber, Robert, Margaret, and Lori in that order. Thanks to each of you for sending these in!

Lori has a Facebook page at Angel in the attic which features a lot of her great work!

Customer Project D. Lawless Hardware - Amber

Customer Project D. Lawless Hardware - Robert

Customer Project D. Lawless Hardware - Margaret

Customer Project D. Lawless Hardware - Lori

Send us your projects! I'd love to be able to post them up for all to see!

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

7 Big Chill Appliances & D. Lawless Hardware Perfect Matches!

We were approached recently by Big Chill to create a mood board around their products. Since we aren't really a design blog and we are in the hardware business I thought it might be appropriate for me to match some of our vintage style glass knobs with the Big Chill appliances. I have actually seen a few of our colors on other people's board which made my day!

Below I've put together some matches of what I think really goes well together from our inventory of these beautiful Big Chill appliances. The first match is this beautiful black and brushed brass classic style stove from Big Chill matched with brushed brass hardware from Liberty Hardware.

Big Chill - D. Lawless - Brushed Brass

Here are some topaz and black knobs from Liberty Hardware that match the Big Chill Retro Pro fridge from their website. Love bright colors in the kitchen.

Big Chill - D. Lawless - Bright Orange

I love their black appliances even though it doesn't really take advantage of the unique colors they offer. I guess I'm just boring! Below is their jet black retro fridge alongside some custom glass knob from Design Studio 180 that are only available at D. Lawless Hardware.

Big Chill - D. Lawless - Jet Black

Next up is another colorful combo that combines one of our most popular glass knob colors with this "beach blue" washer from Big Chill. We call ours a milk blue as it's a play off the old milk glass of the middle of last century. We do a lot of antique reproduction and retro styles of hardware so it's a perfect match for these appliances.

Big Chill - D. Lawless - Milk Blue

And we also have the milk green which matches very closely with what Big Chill is calling turquoise.

Big Chill - D. Lawless - Milk Green

As I said before I'm a sucker for the classic simple styles and Big Chill and D. Lawless got that covered together when you match their beautiful stainless steel finish stoves with the D. Lawless Hardware stainless steel bar pulls!


And finally we see Big Chill has a color for everyone. This beautiful red fridge matches ones of our most popular ceramic knobs perfectly!

Big Chill - D. Lawless - Big Red

We've got a match for everything Big Chill Appliance's has somewhere on our site and we'd be proud to be part of any kitchen renovation using Big Chill Appliances!








Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Free Hardware Friday Projects! Weeks 1-3

This post is just proof to all the doubters out there that the hardware is indeed free on Free Hardware Friday. Below is a list of pictures I've received from happy Free Hardware Friday participants. Many of these photos are on the D. Lawless Hardware website and are helping us sell the rest of the lots!

We post the rest on our HomeTalk page and I'll keep updating all the projects there as we go. We are nearly to our 20th Free Hardware Friday and I'm grateful for getting to meet all of the readers and customers that have participated!

From the inaugural Free Hardware Friday we have this French tassel pull in antique brass and it was used by many people including some bloggers...

free hardware friday 1 gallery, kitchen cabinets, kitchen design

free hardware friday 1 gallery, kitchen cabinets, kitchen design

free hardware friday 1 gallery, kitchen cabinets, kitchen design



Week two featured two sets of hardware from Laurey! Participants got to choose between satin nickel and Venetian bronze birdcage hardware and we had many takers!

free hardware friday 2 gallery, kitchen cabinets, kitchen design, pallet

free hardware friday 2 gallery, kitchen cabinets, kitchen design, pallet

free hardware friday 2 gallery, kitchen cabinets, kitchen design, pallet

We had several pieces of hardware up for grabs in week three and received many great photos of unique projects for our social media and website!

free hardware friday 3 gallery, bedroom ideas, painted furniture, pallet, ponds water features

free hardware friday 3 gallery, bedroom ideas, painted furniture, pallet, ponds water features

free hardware friday 3 gallery, bedroom ideas, painted furniture, pallet, ponds water features

This isn't even all the projects we got in return. I just wanted to preview some of them and show off what you can do if you choose to participate! Bloggers welcome! I actually JUST gave out a record 19 orders last Friday! I might have to start a cut off point soon! 

Cheers!

Friday, April 8, 2016

Free Hardware Friday #18

THIS PROMOTION HAS ENDED. PLEASE CHECK BACK NEXT WEEK!

Good morning (barely)! I'm a little late today with the Free Hardware Friday post but we are in business now!

The rules are the same as every week....

1. E-mail me at the address on the bottom of the post with your name, address, the product number, and how many you need.

2. Please put in writing what you plan to use the knobs for and also give me permission to use your photos to market the knobs. I might put your pictures up on our HomeTalk account, Facebook, or website. If you click our HomeTalk link above you can see a lot of the projects completed by Free Hardware Friday participants over the last couple of months.

Complete these two tasks and get as many of these knobs as you need totally free including free shipping. Totally free!

As you can see by the product photo, I really need new pics of this one!

This brushed satin silver sunflower knob is 1 3/8" and is part of the Knob hill collection. It's discontinued so we are the only place to get it!


E-mail me at lawlesshardware (at) gmail (dot) com if you would like to participate!

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

How to Measure the Overlay of Hinges & Cabinet Doors

When referring to an "overlay" people will often mean two different things. There is an overlay on your cabinets, and overlay of the hinge. In order for the cabinet doors to function properly you will need to match these to each other. I'll show you how to measure both below.

If you already have your hinges and you want to determine what the overlay of the hinge so that you can replace them then you can determine the overlay very simply. Below are two shots of two different 1/2" overlay hinges. The overlay is the distance from the corner wraparound part of the hinge and the barrel. This OVERLAYS, or overlaps, the cabinet door with the cabinet door opening.

Here are two examples shown on the semi-wraparound 1/2" overlay hinges.

how to measure hinge overlay

Most overlay hinges will either be 1/4",  3/8", or 1/2". So if you are measuring and it's really close to 1/4", 3/8", or 1/2", then just round to the nearest overlay increment as long as it's quite close. Depending on how the hinge is made the measurements will vary a millimeter or two but that won't end up affecting anything. Be sure and measure just up to where the hinge turns down. Do not measure to the outside of the hinge.

Fin the overlay of your hinge

There are also hinges that are called "variable overlay" which mount on the outside of the cabinet and allow the builder to simply slide the hinge to whatever location or overlay is needed. Variable overlay hinges are a much more flexible option but aren't quite as sturdy as they don't wrap around the cabinet at all. Unless you have very heavy cabinet doors then variable overlay hinges will still be sufficiently strong. Here's what a variable overlay hinge looks like. Screws will be visible when using a variable overlay hinge.

variable overlay hinge
There is also one more kind of overlay hinge in the full wraparound. The full wraparound overlay hinge adds a lot of sturdiness to the cabinet doors and would be appropriate for very heavy doors. The full wraparound hinge looks like the one below and wraps entirely around the faceframe. You can see the extra lip at the bottom as being different from the partial wrap hinges at the top.

Full wraparound brass hinge


Once you understand what the overlay of a hinge is it is very easy to determine how far your cabinets are overlaying in your kitchen or wherever they are. As you can see below the 1/2" overlay of the hinges above is marked with the red line. A 1/2" overlay hinge overlays the cabinet door 1/2" past the opening of the cabinet. Whatever the distance of the highlighted red area, that is the overlay of your cabinet door.


And of course if this doesn't answer all your questions we've got experts on hand to answer any of your questions and make sure you get the exact hinge you need.