You can update your ceiling fan from completely disgusting to brand new with just $5 and an hour or two with something you probably already have at home!
You know when something is so gross, you don’t even want to look at it? As if not looking somehow makes you safe from the dirt and grime? This is how we cleaned the grossest ceiling fan I’ve ever seen.
My son’s ceiling fan was like that when we moved into our house. After I noticed how gross and dirty it was, I turned it off even in the heat of the summer. And I prayed the dirt wouldn’t fall off. Haha.
His fan was especially disgusting because the guy who lived here before us was a smoker. Tar covered our walls and ceilings, and this fan showed it. There was gross brown tar all over this, and that oily tar from the smoke catches all the fuzz bunnies and makes monster greasy fuzz bunnies. Gross.
(Skip over this picture if you aren’t into seeing gross stuff. Yuck.)
I’m going to tell you how we fixed that puppy up since it isn’t in our budget to get a new one at the moment. It’s pretty easy (even for a beginner DIY’er) and super cheap. Just how I like things!!
You’ll need:
- A screwdriver
- Cleaning gloves if you’re squamish like me
- Degreaser or all-purpose cleaner
- Paper towels
- A ladder (or a bed under the fan you can stand on!)
- Spray paint
- About an hour (mostly to let the paint dry)
Optional:
- Cleaning gloves
- Spray primer
- A drop cloth to catch the overspray
Now let’s get down to business!
- Gloves on!
- First, you’ll want to unscrew the fan blades from the fan.
- Then, get your cleaner and paper towels to give the fan a good wipe down. If the lights have been on and are hot, be sure to spray cleaner on your towel, not the fan.
- Clean the blades real good.
- Lay out all your fan blades on your tarp and spray them in nice even strokes. If you have smoke tar on your blades, this is when you want to use your primer to make sure the paint will stick to any oil you didn’t get off thoroughly.
- Let it dry. And follow the instructions on the back of the spray paint can to know when you can apply your paint layer.
- Let it dry.
- Screw the fan blades back onto the fan.
- Stand back and hear the angels singing.
See? You, yep, even your busy doing-it-all mama self can have a brand new looking ceiling fan in no time!
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