Grates, scrubbed and painted

One small home improvement completed: the scrubbing and cleaning of grates, vacuuming pet hair out of vent, removing pencil crayons, pennies and other small objects that fit through the holes - thank you curious little toddler. And polishing and painting. 

A much needed facelift. I first tried black, because I had a bottle of black spray paint. That seemed a little harsh and luckily I ran out by the 3rd cover.  Off to the store for a softer colour, Oil rubbed bronze gives the new, old effect, but not as harsh. Most of the hardware in the original house was a mix of shiny silver or bronze and I had been replacing door handles and light fixtures with oil rubbed bronze, so this should help with the continuity as well.

I never did like the silver grates. Had looked into replacing them at Restoration Hardware but that added up to one large expense. Never a priority. Spurred into action and having to sell home, a thorough cleaning and some spray paint cleaned up the dulled and dinged silver.   A quick fix, an easy upgrade.  Each one was removed and cleaned in the laundry room washtub then placed on newspaper in the basement.  While the grate was drying I came back upstairs and used newspaper and painters tape to cover and protect the hardwood. I cut a piece of card box to cover the opening. Back down stairs to spray the grate, then upstairs to spray the trim. 10 minutes of drying time and they were ready to be reassembled.   Luckily this paint dries very quickly as the cats like to sleep on the heat.

The cold air vents were given the same treatment.