I’ve been looking — and looking, and looking — for an quality replacement doorbell unit for a renovation job, but have come up virtually empty-handed. WillowGlen.com sells some beautiful Craftsman-style chime units, but they’re really not right for a more traditional, Colonial house. Local eletrical supply houses here in Philadelphia, and even Internet searches, have turned up nothing particularly attractive or well-made.
Seems like almost every other “house part” has its own cottage industry (restoration lighting, door hardware — even doorbell button covers), but I’m stumped on this final detail.
Anyone found a replacement unit nice enough for a high-end job?
Replies
If you can't find anything appropriate you can build a recess in the wall to hide a conventional looking one and cover it will a cast iron or wooden grate.
Or get something like one of those hall benches and mount it on the back.
I just put in one of those simple $7 bells. They go with all old house styles although they tend to scare the crap out of anyone in the house when rung. But hey, those crafstmen chimes are $200 and up. ...that's not a mistake, it's rustic
Have you checked the Old House Journal catalogue? It's available at many larger magazine stands and has all sorts of interesting old house stuff.
Maybe the question could be, "when did fancy doorbells begin to be available?"
I bet that the first electric bells were just buzzers, like mentioned above, and that chimes and such probably didn't really become common until the '50s (when small electric motors finally were widely available to run the mechanism inside.
Of course, any house older than about 1910 would mostly have a hand operated bell of some kind.
The idea of mounting the thing in the wall with a decorative grille sounds very nice, and probably pretty close to 'period' too.
Yeah, there are site on the Internet that sell the old Victorian-style mechanical bells (which no doubt also scare the crap out of anyone unlucky enough to be standing under them). I'm not concerned with historical accuracy, though, so much as finding something that looks and sounds reasonably nice. It surprises me that no one is exploiting this as a niche market, given that most older houses have existing doorbells, and most renovators are likely going to want to replace them along with the tons of track lighting, cheap doorknobs and chintzy cabinet hardware that are torn out of old houses every day. The latter are supplied by innumerable boutique catalogues and websites; the former seem unavailable at any price (except the $200 Craftsman bells.)