My Love of Home: “What Goes Around Comes Around” or “Recycling a Ceiling Fan”

Ceiling fans are a wonderful invention. Nothing beats them for circulating air in a room. How do deal with them if you want to change your décor? One way is to simply replace it with a new model, but when you are trying to pinch pennies, finding one you actually like could set you back quite a bit. Fortunately, they can be revamped at a fraction of the cost. This one in our master bedroom had served us well but was beginning to look a little dated with the brass and glass. Before

So I got out my ladder, turned off the power to the fan and began taking it down. I discovered that I didn’t have to remove the entire fan from the ceiling. I was able to leave all the electrical connections in place since I was painting my ceiling, I could spray paint part of the base without removing it. Just make sure you have drop cloths under your fan. But if you are not painting your ceiling, you will need to remove everything that needs painting. I removed the blades from the brass pieces and took all the brass and white metal pieces outside to paint. I wiped them all down, put a coat of grey primer on them and the painted them with Brushed Nickel spray paint. The next day, I reassembled everything and replaced the globes with some new ones I found a Wal-mart for under $4. Total cost for the new ceiling fan was under $20.

After

Quite an improvement don’t you think?

The Master Bath fan was identical to the master bedroom fan, but I didn’t want to do the brushed nickel. I only painted the brass and left the white alone. I replaced the globes with the same ones from Wal-mart to add continuity.

Here is a picture of another fan I revamped a few years back. I don’t have any before pictures but it was also brass and white to begin with. I used Oil Rubbed Bronze and added a touch of Rub N’ Buff gold paste to give a little more dimension. With this fan, I also had to replace the blades since I no longer wanted the white. I purchased these blades as well as the new globes at Lowe’s. A definite improvement in my opinion. I spent a little more than in the bedroom, but still it was a fraction of the cost of replacing it.