Hooked Doorstops

I bought my first antique doorstop when I moved into our old house in 1997. The doors did not line up exactly plumb, and stops were necessary to keep a few of them propped open. A second doorstop, then a third and a fourth, followed my first purchase, and to thwart my compulsion to begin yet another collection, I bought The Doorstop Book: The Encyclopedia of Doorstop Collecting (Schiffer, 2006) by John and Nancy Smith.

The resurgence of doorstops as collectibles today is motivated by nostalgia, aesthetics, and in cases like mine, the actual need to keep a door propped open. However, doorstops by nature are very heavy, and they have often scratched my floors when I accidentally knocked one over. "How cool would it be," I thought, "to hook them in wool and just weight the bottom?"

This article is from the January/February 2012 issue. For more information on our issues, check out our issues page.