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$6 Dollar Ceiling Fan Update

One of the reasons we bought this house was an amazing sunroom off of the kitchen/dining room. But it looked like it was out of an 90’s issue of DIY Home, especially the ceiling fan. 

So as I was priming the walls and a beam in the ceiling I realized if I wanted to update the ceiling fan, I should to do it now before the second coat of primer and before the actual painting began in case it got messy.

I am not an electrician so taking the ceiling fan off was not going to be an option for me. So I winged it and came up with a solution.

So here is my brass ceiling fan in all it’s brassiness glory:

IMG_8516

I proceeded to take off the globes, which were in a huge need of a cleaning anyway, and started unscrewing parts I figured needed to come off. But, to my delight it was only the ceiling fan blades.

I taped up the electrical parts and I taped some newspaper to the ceiling. I didn’t make it perfect since I knew I will painting the ceiling anyway. I also taped some newspaper hanging down as well (which I didn’t get a picture of) just so my spray wouldn’t go all over the place.

photo 2

I used Rust-o-leum’s Silver hammered look spray paint because I wanted to keep it light and not draw the eye up.

Spray paint in hand, I tackled the fan. I sprayed using short strokes, while trying just to get everything covered but not force the spray paint incase it went where it shouldn’t go.

I then spray painted the parts that attached to the blades and also the screws that hold in the light globes the same silver.

I chose to spray paint the actual blades white, because again I didn’t want to bring the eye up.

I put everything back together and voila! A beautiful new ceiling fan! It only cost me $6 for the spray paint and a little sweat since I decided to do this on a 90+ degree day!

What do you think?

*Update: A lot of question about whether it affected the motor at all, and it didn’t. We are still using this ceiling fan 6 years later. 

In the future I will probably change out the globes to something a little more modern, but these are fine for for now.

Take a look at our how the painting of our room turned out! 

dining room pictured with links to projects

Christy

Thursday 8th of August 2019

Most other sites suggest sanding the metal. Your paint stuck without sanding? TIA

Susan V.

Thursday 4th of April 2019

Thank you for the push! I "traded" in my crappy 1990's brass ceiling fan for a lovely espresso fan. I took mine apart a bit further then you did, but probably didnt need too. It looks great and was super easy. $4.00 rattle can and an hour of time. Worth it!

Monica

Wednesday 2nd of May 2018

That's amazing! I am so thinking to try this because I am a DIY kind of lady! I am just skeptical on taking the fan apart etc...

Bobbie

Friday 13th of October 2017

I love this idea!! I hate my dark brown ceiling fan against my white ceiling and gray walls. I love Rust-Oleums hammered look. I will be doing this. Thank you for sharing!!

Terri

Tuesday 22nd of August 2017

I love it, my Mom just painted her bedroom in a light grey & had a horrible 90's style ceiling fan that I told her to replace.....but we are going to do this, it's perfect! SO glad I saw this, so thank you. What is the silver "hammered" paint? Is it just silver or What? Thanks, just wasn't sure. ?

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