Polished Nickel Is The Bee's Knees!

Polished nickel is quickly becoming the latest craze in the hardware world. Really.....? Why.....? To be honest I don't fully know the answer, but every chance I've gotten I've asked my customers why they've chosen polished nickel over polished chrome and the one answer that's been the same is that it has a much richer warmer tone than chrome does. I've also noticed that polished nickel can go into almost any design setting while polished chrome is almost exclusively in a contemporary setting.

I started doing a bit of research on nickel and from the tiny amount of information I have been able to find, polished nickel was favored early on for a plating choice because it's extremely durable and when plated it finishes very hard. In early automobiles all of the bumpers, fenders, etc. were actually nickel plated as opposed to chrome plated.

Basically the main difference from polished chrome and polished nickel is that the chrome has a bluish white undertone and nickel has a golden amber undertone. I know, it's hard to think of a piece of silver material having any golden tone in it at all, but it does. Even though the undertone is there the material is still overall a silver color. The color difference has to do with the different types of elements and compounds added in the plating process.

There are a number of items available today that come in the polished nickel, but for now I will focus on a few that seem to be reemerging. In the past few months I have had quite a few people ask for "Christopher Peacock" type hardware. After a few people asked, I was on the hunt to find out who this Christopher Peacock was. After some web searching I have found that he is a high end designer. He uses very similar design elements in all of his rooms. He seems to focus on functionality, durability as well as beauty. Almost every room that he's designed has an elegant, rich warmth to it. Christopher Peacock is well known for his Scullery kitchens, which almost always use polished nickel hardware.

Here are some polished nickel items that are similar to items I've seen in Christopher Peacock kitchens.



There are a number of different hardware items available in polished nickel, but in the near future I think we can expect to see quite a few more.

Erica
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