The hinge should be the same finish as the doorknob that's on the side of the door from where the hinge butt/knuckle will be visible.

Thank you so much mongoct!

I was just pondering this issue, too! (Our situation is the opposite: house is mostly nickel/stainless, but this guest bath is oil-rubbed bronze).

So Mongo, if the door opens into the bathroom, even though you see the hinge plates from the outside when the door is open (as it is most of the time), you're saying the hinge color should be decided by the pin (knuckle?) side, which visible from inside the room when the door is closed, right?

So if the guest bathroom fixtures are ORB, and the door hardware on the other doors in the same hallway are brushed nickel, you would do the door for the guest bath as follows: ORB inside knob, brushed nickel outside knob, and ORB hinges? Thanks, I just want to make sure I'm following along and coloring in my score sheet correctly! ;)

-- Eric

Eric, the standard is the way I described. It's not a hard and fast rule, it's just "a" way.

Now if you have a door that will always be open (perhaps a set of french doors for example) and the mismatching hinge leaves will drive you nuts, then by all means go with the finish that best suits your preferences.

The argument could be made that with the door open all the time, now you have the "outside" or hallway colored doorknob "inside" the bathroom.

But do whatever feels best for you. Personally I figure hardware based upon the door being closed.

FWIW I've split-finished hinges before, the knuckle one finish and the leaves another. Cha-ching more than you could ever imagine. And not cha-ching because the process is amazingly expensive. It was uber-cha-ching because the interior designer was such a twit.

Thanks, Mongo. I know that all such rules of thumb are not hard-and-fast -- I just wanted to make sure I was understanding what you were saying correctly.

In our case, these are standard 30" white-painted paneled wood interior doors, with two bedrooms, a smaller hall linen closet, and the bathroom in question in close proximity around the landing at the top of a stairway. Only the closet opens out into the hallway; the other three open into the rooms. It's just my wife and I in the house except when we have guests, so most of the time, all the doors (except the linen closet) are open -- meaning the eye sees the hinge leaves rather than the knuckles. So I'm thinking the outer doorknobs and hinges should all probably match, even though that means when someone uses the bathroom and closes the door, from the inside, the knuckle will not match the other hardware in that room.

The split-finish hinge would solve the problem, but even with all the "what's a little bit more money to do it the way we really like?" rationalizations I make during renovation projects, I don't think I'm ready to splurge on big bucks for this! Although... ;)

-- Eric