Cold Air Return Make-over

When we bought the house everything inside and out was either slopped with white paint or spray painted with white paint. It's still painful for me to remember the amount of paint that was on the hardwood floors after we tore up the carpet. It was ridiculous. I've never seen such idiocy, such disrespect!!!

Anyway, the cold air returns in the house were gunked up with peeling white spray paint, with big dried on drips in all the crevices. We even considered replacing them, not even sure what to do to make them look normal again. Then quickly realized that would cost about $400, but the cold air returns are very necessary and functional.

Well, with a little paint stripper, some tedious scraping, a light sanding, and a hosing down outside, the first cold air return was ready to be re-coated with a nice copper finish. You'd never know! The entire project only took a few hours over the course of a couple of days.

BEFORE:


AFTER: