House accessories/color help needed

Ok...here's the deal. Our front door has two door knobs. When the house was taken by the bank they probably just took the deadbolt and instead replaced it with a cheap door knob so that the door had a lock. See exhibit A.


The screen door handle on the front door is also broken. It works, but pieces are missing and it has parts that are all jiggly and loose. And, they're bright brass, which I really dislike. So, we are using our garage sale money to buy new door knobs.

Now, seems like a simple process, right? Well... not quite. I need to look at the whole picture- we don't plan on keeping the door green (well, actually we'll probably replace the front door sometime in the far future, but for now paint will be an easy fix). Painting the door means painting our shutters- which we want to do because our neighbors house is very similar in style to ours and is the exact same colors (minus the brick on the front).

We originally thought we'd do black door and black shutters. I like the black/tan look and up here we rarely see that color combo (it seems like EVERY house has hunter green or burgundy shutters). Now, a black door means I'd pretty much get an aged bronze door handle or satin nickel. I really like satin nickel fixtures, so we figured we'd go with that.

Now... I also LOVE the oil rubbed bronze fixtures... you know the black ones that look a little distressed and have a reddish brown showing through? But... I couldn't do black handle/fixtures and a black door.

And then our front door has this white colonial style trim around the door as well as a white screen door. (I'm not a big fan of screen doors covering pretty, decorative doors, but we like to leave the doors open and let the breeze in so we do use our screen door a lot in the summer).

Will the colonial style trim and the screen door look ok with the black door and satin nickel handle? We'd also get a satin nickel light as well, I think. Does satin nickel look ok on a tan house?

I'm so unsure! I'm just not sure about colors and hardware and all that. We don't plan on painting the shutters until the spring (maybe- we have like 22 pair of shutters we'd have to paint!), so its not like its a huge deal right now, but I figured I'd better make sure the satin nickel handle we bought will look ok with the "end results." And what better place to get an opinion than here on the blog!

So... please fire away. Give me ideas... colors, hardware metals etc.... (I've tried searching for house styles like ours... which I found is called a "Garrison Colonial"... but still haven't found anything that really catches my eye)




The front door has like black metal inside the glass. Does that matter when deciding on what kind of handle to get?
Here are the two door handles we bought... which do you prefer? (they are a satin nickel... they kind of look brass here, but they're not).