Why hardware is the last thing people choose and the first thing they regret

Hardware is the most touched surface in a kitchen. You interact with a pull or knob dozens of times a day, the way it sits in your hand, the weight of it, the texture under your fingers. These things register even when you're not thinking about them. Generic hardware doesn't ruin a kitchen. It just quietly disappoints it.

The good news: hardware is also one of the easiest things to get right. You don't need to renovate. You just need to choose deliberately.

What you're actually choosing when you choose hardware

Most people think about hardware as a finish decision, brass or matte black, round or bar. But that's only part of it. What you're really choosing is material, construction, and how the piece will age.

Material matters more than it looks. Solid brass and bronze are dense, naturally antibacterial, and develop a living patina over time, they get better with use. Hollow zinc pulls, which make up most of what you'll find in a big-box store, feel light in your hand and don't age gracefully. You can usually tell the difference the moment you pick one up.

Finish matters too, but not in the way most people think. A lacquered finish can look perfect for a year and then start to wear unevenly. An unlacquered brass develops patina, areas you touch more will darken differently from areas you don't. That variation is not a flaw. It's the object becoming specific to your home.

Proportion is the most common mistake. Hardware that is too small for the drawer it's on looks like an afterthought. Hardware that is scaled correctly, a longer bar pull on a wide drawer, a more substantial knob on a heavy door, feels resolved. When in doubt, go slightly larger than you think you need.

Three makers. Three different answers to the same question.

At Mararamiro, we carry hardware from three makers whose work we believe in completely. They come from different countries, work in different ways, and make pieces with very different characters. What they share is that none of them make hardware that blends in.

Grimes Foundry — Bath, England

Thomas Grimes sand-casts brass and bronze in small batches in Bath, England, then hand-chases each piece so the marks of making stay in the metal. The result is hardware that carries visible evidence of how it was made — subtle surface variation, a weight that communicates quality before you've consciously registered it.

His forms are rooted in heritage, the Round Step Pull, the Solomon Drop Pull, the Flower Pull drawn from botanical sources. These are shapes that have existed in English homes for centuries, reinterpreted with the kind of precision that comes from someone who takes the original seriously. They are the pulls you choose when you want your kitchen to look like it has always been exactly this way. Available in six finishes, from polished brass to blackened bronze.

Grimes Foundry is new to Mararamiro this month. See the full collection →

Maha Alavi — Toronto (based in Tokyo)

Maha Alavi is a Canadian industrial designer whose training in philosophy and psychology shows in every piece she makes. She's interested in how objects shape the people who use them, how a form you reach for dozens of times a day quietly influences your sense of a space. Hardware, for Alavi, is not decorative. It's relational.

Her CERCLE series, pulls and knobs in geometric forms, was inspired by time spent in cities like Berlin, Tokyo, and Singapore, places where industry and nature sit in close proximity. The pieces are precise and considered, available in an unusually wide range of finishes including polished natural bronze, textured satin brass, matte black, gunmetal, and sandblasted aluminium. Her MOMI series takes a different direction, organic, sculptural forms that feel almost botanical in hand. The GOOD EYE knob is exactly what its name suggests: something you'll notice.

Alavi's work is for people who think about objects. Explore Maha Alavi at Mararamiro →

EVAANNA — Budapest, Hungary

Eva Anna Gulacsi trained as a jewelry maker before deciding she was more interested in making jewelry for the home. That background is visible in her work: every EVAANNA piece begins as a hand-shaped clay model, which is then sand-cast in solid brass or bronze and hand-finished in her Budapest studio. She works with a family-run local foundry for all castings, and makes every finished object herself.

Her Pinch collection, knobs and pulls inspired by the human touch, has soft, organic shapes designed to fit naturally between the fingers. The Firm Pinch knob has a deep, textured surface and substantial presence. The Gentle Pinch long knob is more elongated and refined, equally suited to a wardrobe door or a kitchen drawer. Each piece has an unlacquered surface that will develop its own patina over years of use.

"In a way I'm still making jewelry," Eva Anna has said. "Jewelry for the home." Discover EVAANNA →

How to choose

If your kitchen leans traditional, period details, painted cabinets, natural stone, Grimes will feel like it belongs there. His pieces are the hardware equivalent of something you might find in an English country house, brought forward without being precious about it.

If you want hardware to be a deliberate design moment, something your guests will actually notice and ask about, Maha Alavi's work rewards that attention. The CERCLE series in particular works beautifully in contemporary kitchens where the cabinetry is clean and the hardware needs to carry visual interest.

If you're drawn to the idea of objects that are made by a single pair of hands and age into something irreplaceable, EVAANNA is the answer. These are pieces you buy once and keep for the life of the kitchen.

One last thing

Hardware is a tactile category in a way that photographs can't fully communicate. The weight of cast bronze, the texture of a hand-finished surface, the way a pull sits in your hand when you open a drawer, these are things you need to feel to understand

We carry all three makers in store at 2090 Dundas Street West, Toronto. Come in and hold something. It'll make the decision easier.