I painted all the doors black and they look great (check them out here), but the old painted door hinges look horrible. They have been painted over two or three times with white paint and I’ve loathed them for years. My first thought was to run out and buy new black replacement hinges, but maybe I might be able to reuse the old hinges somehow.
Supplies
As I ponder, Super Dad walks out of the room and returns with some paint stripper and one of my mixing bowls. Of course, I could only focus on my mixing bowl being filled with toxic chemicals and I freaked out for about 5 seconds. After he finished laughing at me, we headed off to the Goodwill store and I bought a gently used stainless steel bowl for $1. 
This is the “Paint Stripper Bowl” and now I can focus on removing almost two decades of paint from the hinges.
We used Klean Strip Premium stripper and this stuff is serious. Make sure you use chemical resistant gloves or else you’ll be sorry you didn’t. Soon after the picture below, dad learned that lesson. As you can see, this stuff ate right through that paint in no time. I used a couple of paint scrapers and a metal brush to get the stubborn areas. Well, I didn’t do it, but I watched.
Here are my freshly cleaned brass hinges. This is about just as revolting as the old white paint, but the hinges are still perfectly usable….just not in this color.
A few years ago, I (meaning dad) swapped out all of the old brass door knobs with brushed stainless. They looked exquisite, but the actual door looked even worse with the new knobs. I’m leaving those as is because now that the doors are freshly painted the new knobs stand out.
I went back and forth for about an hour deciding between black or stainless for the hinges. Black won out again. No need to have the hinges stand out, right? It’s not like they are statement pieces. I think some spray paint ought to do the trick.
New Hinges
TAH-DAH! It’s like magic, right???? This is perfect! I couldn’t wait to get the doors back up, so I convinced dad to help me hang one just so I could see how it would look.
It looks so good with the freshly painted trim in Benjamin Moore Simply White. The hinges don’t stand out at all and I saved a few pennies by reusing the old ones. It doesn’t always cost an arm and a leg to update your space. A little can of spray paint can go a looong way.
