I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Mixed metals are cool.

When I started designing the kitchen, I knew I wanted to incorporate as much brass as possible, for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, I had a couple of metal tones in the kitchen that were non-negotiable because they were extant (which is a fancy historical way of saying they already existed in the house and were historic, and therefore important to me). 

So here were the known metals:  My brass door hardware, my historic cabinet pulls and latches, and the color of the hardware on my new appliances.  All in all I was dealing with tarnished brass that might one day be shiny, lesser quality historic latches that will always be tarnished because most of their plating had worn away, cup pulls that were somewhere in the middle, and the shiny new, unique brass tone of my new appliances.

The other thing stuck in my mind when selecting finishes, was this great take on mixed metals from Chris Loves Julia.  I tend to select finishes from a historic framework, but this article also made mention of choosing quality of metal over matching, which I really took to heart.  

Enter, Build with Ferguson  Build with Ferguson does a great job of curating many different product lines all in one place.  The ability to have several kitchen items sourced and shipped from one place, in one shopping cart, made my life so much easier.  Plus, Ferguson offers professionals exclusive pricing on the best selection of products with stock you can depend on.

For the kitchen cabinetry, I went with two different finishes from Top Knobs.  For the latches, I chose the two inch cabinet latch in German Bronze.  I chose this finish because I loved this latch, and it did not come in unfinished brass.  Typically, when I install new hardware in the house, I go with unfinished brass because it is historically appropriate and it patinas over time.  This is how the product would have aged in the house a hundred years ago, so why not do it again today.  In this case however, I just didn’t see a shiny brass latch that I thought looked high quality.  This, and the fact that my other latches have long lost their brass plating, meant that the German Bronze latch would match perfectly with the other latches in the space.

Similarly, when it came to finding cup pulls for the new cabinets, I focused first on form, and then on finish.  I only have three extant cup pulls in the kitchen, and so finding something that closely matched the shape was important to me.  These 2 9/16th pulls from Top Knobs were the closest shape I saw anywhere, and I think they’re just perfect.  Once again though, when it came to finish, they didn’t come in unfinished brass, so I went with something they call Honey Bronze.  This was a little bit of  risk for me, but what put me over the edge was how closely they matched my appliance hardware. Once they were installed, I fell instantly in love.  They are gold enough to look like brass, but soft enough to have that slightly bronzey look that my appliances also have.  They also feel really good in the hand. 10/10. 

You can check out the Dakota cup pull here

Ultimately, I still have a couple of other metal tones that will pop up in the kitchen through other materials, but more on that in the future.