Escutchion Excursion

You learn a lot of things when you’re remodeling your bathroom. Like how long you can go without taking a shower and no one in the free world has ever seen nor heard of a sink without holes in it. But for me the most fun little tidbit of knowledge I have garnered has been about Escutcheon. According to Wikipedia, an Escutcheon is a shield, something that goes around a keyhole or in medicine the distribution of ahem...hair. But for the purpose of our discussion (which is exactly how you pronounce escussion minus the “d”) we are going to talk about the bathroom variety, found behind the knobs of your sink or in this case, shower.

 

So, last week I went on an Escutchion excursion. And wouldn’t you know, I found two beautiful knobs with matching Escutchions at a place in Wichita called Old Town Architectural Salvage. 

That thing on the right is the Escutchion of which we speak.

So I’m driving home with them and I decide to stop off and show them to the hubs at work. As he inspects the merchandise, I start dinking with one of them and lo and behold, it breaks right down the middle.

Fantastic.

Add that to the list of things I’ve learned: don’t put unnecessary pressure on 90ish year old porcelain. Okay, so now I have to find a matching Escutchion to replace that one with or I have to find a pair that will work with our knobs. So yesterday, my dear old mom and I head out to Halstead, Kansas to the fascinating, fantastic Old Hardware Store.

This place. Let me tell you. It’s amazing.

Drawers full of treasures stretching up to the ceiling. Nearly identical to how it appeared when it opened in 1879!

Which, would in itself be a feat but the fact that they actually are an operating, useful hardware store just blows my little mind. So, after we are greeted warmly and ushered to the back of the back of the shop, our hostess eyes a seemingly endless wall of drawers and Bam! Pulls out one with at least a dozen Escutchions. We search through them, find two that work and trade the one I hadn’t broken for store credit (if you were wondering why I only have the broken one in my picture).

(New Escutchions, Yay!)

Now, of course you know that you can’t drive 30 minutes to this treasure trove of old timey goodness and leave with just two little chunks of porcelain! So, I bought this stuff too.

A porcelain glazed switch plate cover and a brand spankin’ new push button switch.

So there you have it, bathroom remodeling, while tedious, dirty and sometimes very, very trying can also be a cool learning experience.

Next up, finding a matching pair of these:

Wish us luck! I have a feeling we'll need it.