Ever since stainless steel appliances became all the rage, homebuilders and homeowners alike have combined their kitchen cabinet hinges and pulls with chrome or satin nickel to match or blend with the steel. stainless. Also, most bathrooms have shiny chrome fixtures throughout. Your hinges don’t have to match your appliances to look stylish, and chrome isn’t the only color bathroom fixtures are found in. Mingle!

Copper is a favorite metal to use in the kitchen. It comes in a variety of finishes and looks great with stainless steel. Copper pairs beautifully with warm and cool color schemes. Consider stainless steel appliances and copper hinges with these two color schemes:

1) terracotta floors, distressed sage green cabinets with granite countertops or

2) Slate floors, dove gray cabinets with marble tops.

Depending on the style and finish you choose, copper fixtures can complement most kitchens.

Brass is a great choice for cabinet hinges and knobs in living rooms and family rooms. It brightens up the room and probably already matches some things in those rooms. If you have a collection of antique brass doorknobs, see how antique finish brass hardware helps draw attention to your doorknobs. If you have shiny brass candle holders, try to mimic the basic shape of candle holders in the shape of the hinge plate. However, don’t go overboard with brass everywhere. You will lose the effect of some add-on parts.

For bathrooms, a nice change of pace is nickel or pewter, although brass can also look very elegant in a bathroom. The color scheme makes a big difference. My only suggestion for bathrooms is to choose a metal that you can put on every accessory and piece of hardware you want, from the towel bar to the cabinet hinge. Bathrooms are often too small to mix metal color much, but I think sometimes you can mix finishes if you feel it looks too mixed.

Choosing accessories for your home can be daunting. Here are some basic tips that may be helpful in deciding on the metal and finish for your rooms:

o Look at the items you already have in that room. Do you have a lamp that you love in your living room? Do you have several copper pots in your kitchen? Do you have a beautiful brass shelf that you keep your towels on in the bathroom? Each of those items can inspire the metal accessories in that room. Take pictures of things you like and print them out for a reference folder. Keep them handy as you browse the internet or at your local hardware or home improvement store.

o Find mixed metal elements to match rooms that seem equally divided between two metals. One or two will suffice for most rooms. Alternatively, more subtly blend the color scheme with similar woods or wood finishes. For example: oak and cherry for brass and copper.

o Even fabrics can highlight metal accessories in the room. Imagine pale yellow pillows on a denim sofa in a white and pale blue room with satin-finish brass cabinet hinges, door knobs and curtain rods. The pillow fabric and satin brass fittings accent each other.

Above all, trust your eye. Its your home; should make you happy. Do with it what you want. It is you who has to live in it and look at it every day. And really, do you want a friend who won’t visit you because you have weird taste in door hinges?