How to Quickly Transform Your Old Hardware Using Barkeepers Friend

Having a piece of hefty original brass on a furniture piece or somewhere in your home is an amazing score. It may look dingy and worn now, but don’t toss it! That brass is worth it’s weight in gold, and you’ll see why after you see what an amazing difference one product can do to transform it to being your new favorite hardware! (Note: this post contains affiliate links – please read full disclosure).

Because it’s all about da brass, bout the brass….

p.s. – please feel free to virtually slap me for this post’s title. I can’t stand that song and now I know I just got that torturous song in all of your heads as well.

Earlier this week I shared the newest project, my slate blue Martinsville side table, and a quick bit about cleaning the brass hardware for it with this before and after pic:

Amazing, right? Who knew such a beautiful finish was hiding underneath all that?!

The product I used was * Bar Keepers Friend’s (*affiliate link) amazing fairy dust of powerrrrrr.

Note: do not brush your teeth with this stuff. It will not taste good. In fact, you may not be able to taste at all after… ;)

I’d seen several recommendations by my fellow bloggers about this lil charmer, and this was the first chance I’ve had to truly try it out.

First, the cons:

For all it’s cleaning power, it is decidedly not a product you would say is healthy for you and I highly recommend taking some precautions. I wore cleaning gloves for the whole project, and even washed the hardware with Palmolive after using BKF on it. It was also something that I did in my open garage for ventilation – I am super sensitive to chemical smells, so I needed a lot of fresh air for this.

For the rest of the setup I laid down some newspaper, sat a disposable bowl of water near me and had a cheap toothbrush as my tool (dollar store pack of brushes ftw!).

I used the * powder form of BKF (*affiliate link), so my method was I would dust the hardware with it, dip the toothbrush in the water, and then scrub the grit away. The original shine started to show up with just the first few strokes.

Pros: I am wholly impressed. It took some time working that toothbrush into the grooves, but the effort paid off rather easily.

* This  post contains affiliate links. Please read my full disclosure. I was not paid or given samples of this product, these opinions are 100% my own. If you purchase through these links, you’ll help support this site (at no extra cost to you) and you’ll have a great product you can use for your DIY projects! Thanks! :)