One of the easiest ways to change the look of your furniture and give it a bit of razzle dazzle is with new handles. Unpardonably cheap they can be installed in a blink of eye. Follow in the footsteps of the fashion foward and opt for oversized handles as they add a heightened sense of drama and are fabulously exciting as a result. Below are two examples of elongated door handles enlivening otherwise featureless doors. First up my sisters pad. She has simply sprayed wood she got precut from a DIY store a funky barbie esq pink! 
Next up my pad – similar wardrobe, similar handles but with a slightly different vibe. Glamorous touches like these bring rooms alive. You could spend top whack on super doper handles that cost the earth but they won’t give you half as much satisfaction as doing it yourself, and are catchingly chic. We have them in the store and everyone thinks we have paid a fortune for them.
All the details on how to make and construct these outsized door handles is in my book A Girls Guide To Decorating which hits all major bookstores today!
Photography by Kristen Peres
How can we get some of these wardrobe handles? please contact me via Email.
Just mailed you x
Do you do shipping to HK? I love the long handles. I guess it comes in different colors?
We ship all over the world. The long handles however I think you may have seen in my house or my book and I just made those up
Good for you. Unfortunately I am still waiting for the next print of your book.
I will chase the publishers again very frustrating I realise for all of us – it should be in the end of this month.
Sorry to bother again. Is the book out yet? If not, would you mind sending me via email the details of how to make them? I love to show to my contractor as soon as possible to make my great renovation project perfect.
The book is about a week away from being in the stores. The Shop At Bluebird also have a few if that is of any help. Its pretty simple select the wood you want I opted for oak get it cut to size into 3 peices a long piece for the handle and two short pieces for the ends. The long piece needs to be cut at 45 degrees at each end and the smaller pieces 45 degrees at just one end to create mitre joints.Glue and nail for extra strength and attach to door. Somewhere on my blog (sorry can’t recall where and pretty crazy schedule means I have very little time to hunt) is an image of my sisters bedroom with the handles sprayed pink or there is an image in the book of course. Hope that helps
Hi Abigail, this sounds ridiculously lazy I know but is there any way I can buy these fab handles ready-made? Would a DIY store do the required gluing and nailing?! I can then spray them in an old gold hue (I hope…)
Afraid not no-one does them unfortunately. Although its pretty easy to do and well worth it x
I know that you mention how to do the handles but can you tell me more about the wardrobe.
The wardrobe is just a simple frame or carcass from Ikea I believe I just changed the doors and painted
Are the door made of mdf?
They are indeed
Hi Abigail
I hope you see this. I’ve been truly inspired and have been reading all the archives, I can’t get enough, haha! I just have a modern, newbuild house in Northern Ireland, but yearn for the old London townhouses, but I’m working with what I’ve got. I think my next venture is the living room and I’m going….dark…to be followed with the amazing bookshelf wallpaper! I love interiors and design but sometimes get it wrong, so I was hoping for advice. I know I’m being a copycat, but I was hoping to replicate the pink coffee table. If it is possible could you tell me the shade you used? Thank you so much Denise
Hi Denise, I didnt actually spray that table it came already lacquered from the manufacturer but I think Designers Guild might do a hot pink in their paint range.
Good luck
Hi Abigail–I love your blog and love your decorating style! Can I just ask you–if the wardrobes are Ikea carcasses (I’m assuming PAX) and you simply replaced the doors, were the Ikea carcasses a perfect fit into the space you put them? Or did you have to fashion some sort of frame? thx!
Hi Dianne, no they weren’t a perfect fix and had to be framed out in mdf and then painted out.
Door handles that are made from brass are great because they look elegant. ,`.`,
Please do visit our new web site
http://www.caramoantravel.com
Hi Abigail,
I love your style but am a bit chicken so am drawn to your house as it was shown in a 2006 issue of Elle Decoration..gorgeous! I had these wardrobe handles made up from bits of wood as we couldn’t get oak strips and transformed the wood with oak veneer iron on tape from a DIY store…looks great and has lasted really well. How exactly did you and your sister make your wardrobe doors? Also, what paint/lacquer did you use on them and how was it applied? Final question..are you running any more of your one day workshops this year?
Wardrobe doors were simply made from sheets of MDF and painted, simple as that our builders did it. The design school runs throughout the year once a month, we are about to add the dates from Spring onwards but March dates are up there on all on the site