Time to Vent

Our bathroom vent was in some rough shape.  Long before we started our bathroom Reno I made a terrible attempted of painting the vent white to freshen it up.  Not spray painting it, which would make sense, but I used regular old paint.  It's hard to tell from the picture, but the paint was thick in some spots, thinner in others, bubbly and blotchy.

 I love the nostalgia of this vent cover and I enjoy mixing the new with the old, so getting rid of it was definitely not happening.

I ran to Menards and after spending about 45 minutes trying to figure out what would be the best product to try to get rid of all the nasty paint, I picked up some Ready Strip.  Most of the other strippers only worked on wood finishes.  I liked that this stuff was low VOC, environmentally safe, easy to apply, made in the U.S.A and changes colors when it's ready.

I applied a really thick coat of the Ready Strip all over the vent where there was paint and let it sit for an hour or so...

And once I came back the vent looked like this and I knew it was time to start scraping!

I went to town with a scraper getting off all the bigger areas, but the detailed areas were a little tricky and after using everything from a trowel to an old tooth brush, I found that an old scratch pad worked the best.  It was super easy to get all the paint off, it was just a little time consuming in all the smaller, detailed areas.  When I was done I was left with a container filled with nasty, gummy paint.

After a little elbow grease, hot water and a scrub pad I was left with this:  Granted some of the areas were rusty, but what do you expect from a vent that is probably as old as our 1928 house?...  I also didn't scrape too hard because since the vent was SO old I didn't want to break anything.

I was almost content with leaving it as it, but decided that the bathroom really needed some color.  I was set on trying to find a blue spray paint that matched the shower curtain that we have....

After trying every blue they had that I thought might go with the blues in the bathroom, I realized I had lost that battle.

The below blue I think was called "Spa Blue" and was a complete fail.  Definitely didn't look like the blue on the can, it looked purpler once dried.  EPIC FAIL.  The first two blues, one was too turquoisey and the other was wayyyyyyy too bright for the room...Triple epic fail!

I

I went a completely different route and tried to find a green that would match and I totally did (Rust-oleum's Painter's Touch Ultra Coverage "Eden")!!!

I love love love the way this green looks, it's bright, but not, mellow, but not and just perfect for this project!  It took me a minute to figure it out but I also used this same color when I repainted a table that was my grandparents!  No wonder I gravitated towards it!

So because I LOVE befores and afters.

The beginning:

Third attempt at a blue:

The final product:

I find myself going into the bathroom just to look at the vent, and I love how the green really pops against the white walls and white tile! 

I have ZERO patience when it comes to projects and sometimes I find myself rushing through it or just settling with something in order to just be done; only to find myself a few months down the line redoing the project (making more work for myself).  I'm happy I took the time to strip off all the crappy, bubbly, old paint and keep trying aka painting until I found the perfect color!

Happy spray painting!