Upgrade Your Old Ceiling Fan

Cheap fans with phony shiny wood grain and "brass" parts are pretty ugly, and pretty prevalent. Since I couldn't find a great looking replacement that didn't cost a gazillion dollars, and since my fans still worked fine, I decided to just change their look. This project is easy to do and doesn't require any electrical work (unless you want it to). Plan on taking 2-3 hours to tackle the first 6 steps, and another 30 mins to reassemble your fan and turn it on.

Step 1 Materials

Primer paint
Finish paint
Rustoleum oil based paint or the like
2-3 paint brushes
All purpose cleaner and towels
Screwdriver (flat and/or Phillips depending on your fan)
Ladder

Comments

[artcobain]

 what does it looks like at night?

[tinawina]

 it looks great at night. Replacing the old glass "shades" with the new adjustable spotlights gives a much better room light. And being able to position the lights -- on the wall, on the floor, on the dining room table... -- makes the fan a lot more functional. There's really know flicker at all. I have two of these fans in my living room/dining room -- large room -- and they really look great. No regrets having done this project!

[ac1D]

You forgot some step:
1) Add some knive to each blade
2) mount it on your truck
3) hope zombie come!

[tinawina]

 Ha! You should def pursue that version and post it to Instructables. 

[davidhullster]

Why does the fan have 4 blades before you painted it, and 5 blades after?

[tinawina]

 I think my intro page is a bit confusing - sorry! My fan started out as a 5-blade fan that is brown faux wood and faux brass. On the intro page there is a picture of it -- scroll down to just under the big photo of the finished 4-blade fan and click on the thumbnail to see the original. 

I wanted to minimize the fan as much as possible. Since my fans offer the option to use only 4 blades or to use the full set of 5, I opted to switch from the original 5-blade format to the 4-blade format in the finished project. I do not notice any difference in air circulation with the 4-blade format.

[HarveyH44]

Just a guess, maybe forgot the 'before' picture after starting the project..  I've got 3 different ceiling fans in my house.  I don't do a lot of planning or fore-thought before jumping into a project, and usually afterward thinking I should have taken some pictures.  Documentation has never been a strong point for me, but plan on doing an Instructable sometime.

[tinawina]

 Hi there - there is a "before" picture available. On the intro page, scroll down to just under the big photo of the finished fan and there's a thumbnail you can click that will pull up the photo of the original fan. 

I agree about documentation. I realized after finishing the first of two fans that I should have documented. So glad I had a second fan project to do - though I didn't start documenting that one until I was pretty much done. Whoops!