3.13.2012

Just a Run of the Mill Ceiling Fan Update Post

Do you have something around your house that just bugs you in its ugliness?  That my friends, is my ceiling fan.
While I'm not a big fan (pun intended) of ceiling fans in terms of their beauty or lack thereof, they are great for summer, especially in homes like ours where we don't use air conditioning save for the hottest days of the year.  And considering the botched-up job the previous owners of our home did when rigging up that dark monster, I'm surprised it doesn't propel itself around our kitchen when turned on.
Over the weekend I decided I'd had enough of that faux wood grain. I got some white spray paint and a screwdriver and decided to at least paint the paddles so that they blended in more with the ceiling.

It was surprisingly simple to take this apart.  First I removed the light bulbs and glass shades, which I then cleaned.
Then I unscrewed the fan blades from the motor unit with a Phillips head screwdriver.
Whoa, quite dusty in there. 
Once the blades were off, I removed all of the hardware and cleaned off the paddles.
I was sure to keep all the hardware in a little cup so it didn't get lost. There were screws and a spring clip to keep track of.
After all the parts were cleaned and dry, I took the blades outside and sprayed a few coats of white paint onto them.  I neglected to take photos, as most of my efforts were spent keeping a curious preschooler away from my work.

TIP: Paint the backs of the blades too. I neglected to do this, and you can sort of see the dark color that faces up to the ceiling. As soon as I noticed, I had already screwed everything in place and didn't have a chance to redo it.

The blades spent the night outside to clear away all the paint fumes, and in the morning I reassembled the fan.
Sooooo much better!  Though in my research, I was tempted to do something like this, from Dimples and Tangles:
I don't think I'd want a headache every time I turned on the fan though.

Back to my fan: I also washed the decoupaged paper off of the glass lamps (a "genius" idea I had a few months back; sadly, I went with an ugly paper that was lying about in my craft stash).  Then I painted the inside of the glass white to tone down the harshness of the bulbs.
So far so good! And with the weather we're having this week in Pennsylvania, I might just have to fire up that fan any day now.


8 comments:

Xa Lynn said...

LOL! We had a joke in our old house about how the ugly moved. It started in the kitchen, which was a nasty dark grey-green, with a horribly done white picket fence and pinky-purple flowers and brown bird houses stenciled (LIFESIZE) on the walls. Well, I took care of that with wallpaper, then the ugly moved to the countertop. Hideous. Once we fixed that, it moved into the ceiling fans. I finally got those taken care of, and the ugly then moved into the kitchen cabinet backing (put on sideways!) between the kitchen and dining room. More wallpaper... I can do amazing things with wallpaper... ha!
XaLynn

•´.¸¸.•¨¯`♥.Mrs. Cox.♥´¯¨•.¸¸.´• said...

Nice work! I'm not big on ceiling fans either, but they do have their benefits. Sometimes I miss having one in the master bedroom {during the summer especially}.

Nichol said...

I love ceiling fans! I love how yours now looks, great affordable upgrade:)

Ammie said...

Very cute. Ceiling fans make me grimace when I look at them, but my boys love them. Kidoodle tells stories about the ceiling fan, and prays thanks for it every night. (I think he's desperately looking around his room for things to talk about. . . so he can prolong bedtime.)

Kayla @ TheEclecticElement said...

I think everyone has some ugly in their life no matter whether it's a ceiling fan, a paint color, a piece of furniture, etc.

You just either have to take the ugly by the horns, or learn to love it. Lol

I think you took it by the horns in this case and it turned out fabulous! :)

Terra H. said...

I think you did a nice job on the fan. I have a couple ceiling fans that could use a good cleaning. I don't need to repaint them but it sure wouldn't hurt if I cleared the dust bunnies off them!

Sheena @ Sophistishe said...

And now I have been reminded to clean our fan. You did a great job, nice and fresh!

Naomi Shapiro said...

I really like the stark white with the dark hardware, actually. Makes it blend in more!

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