You can paint your ceiling fan blades!

My kids don't sit down very often, because Moms motto is "if its holding still? You can paint it." Paint is the simplest and least expensive way to update anything in your life...except, maybe, your kids.

Our dining room ceiling fan is by Hunter. I love that its quiet, and moves air from our living area, which holds the woodstove in Winter and the A.C. Unit in Summer, to the rest of the house. The ceiling fan is almost always on, so the cheap veneer blades are hardly noticeable! But, whenever we turn it off I had to view the dark ugly blades. They are the standard issue...you get two sides from the factory.
Choose from:
A) dark fake cherry or
B) medium fake oak.
I picked C) Woodrow Wilson Putty by Valspar, the lovely new gray I just painted our living room accent wall in!
Here is the not-quite-before...
(because I generally think of a blog post about 1/3 of the way through a project)

You can see that I didn't even primer them, just slapped the paint on after a good scrubbing.
As an aside: Man, ceiling fan blades can get nasty along the edges, can't they?
If you choose to paint your blades, I really recommend a good primer, just to make sure the paint holds up well and doesn't blister or peel off. I've found that Kilz brand or BIN 1-2-3 are both good for helping paint adhere to smooth and shiny surfaces like these.
So if thats the wise choice, why didn't I do it? Well, I was in the middle of painting three rooms of my house and was in a hurry, so I took the risk that I might have to re-paint, later. And my life lives close to that ragged edge, baby!

As for what color to paint them, here are my thoughts on paint...if its something you love and want to highlight? Paint it an amazing, lovely color. Example: a bright red dresser with curvy lines. A funky yellow sideboard in the dining room, a warm green accent wall behind the bed. You want others to notice!
If its utilitarian or ugly? Paint it as neutral as possible so the eye glides right over. It's the reason we ladies wear basic black slacks with an amazing colorful blouse, am I right? Hips are great for childbearing but not the feature we want to highlight, usually.

Ceiling fans are hips. Necessary, but not something we draw attention to. We want them not to wobble, and not to be noticed!
Maybe in a kids room we go bright and colorful with the fan, but everywhere else? Quiet, calm and neutral.

I recently helped a client choose a ceiling fan for her huge living room. Even with 18 foot high ceilings, we went simple. Oil rubbed bronze metal with dark teak blades. Buy quality because you don't want them to shake or be loud. But choose a simple, classic design because ceiling fans, no matter how the manufacturers try to gussy them up? Are hips.


The light gray paint helped our ceiling fan blend in better with the low ceiling, and now it disappears a little more, visually. A simple trick that only took 15 minutes and a little bit of latex paint.

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