[ home ] :: cleaning return covers

Do your vent return covers get yucky? Mine do! I had an acquaintance throw away their return covers and buy all new ones when they got to looking like this:

Yucky, yucky, yuck.

But me? No way. I did replace all of the covers when we bought our house (they were old and some were rusty) except for the one pictured above. It's a weird size and would have to have been special ordered...um, no thanks. It has probably been over a year since I gave it a thorough scrubbing, although I do vacuum it off every few weeks. This one particular cover was straight-up nasty, so I took it off, carried it outside and gave it a good scrub with some hot water mixed with vinegar (5 gallons of hot water with 1/2 cup white vinegar).

It still wasn't the pristine-white color I wanted, so I decided a fresh coat of paint wouldn't hurt! I used Rustoleum Ultra Cover in white semi-gloss.

Is it me, or when you spray paint outside every bug in the yard gets stuck in the wet paint?

Way better, right?

Aside from a few little bugs walking through my paint, and a few drippy spots, it turned out great! I gave it a light sanding over the bad areas and re-spritzed before I took it inside to be reinstalled.

- Maggie White