May 29, 2017

Can the Vents From the Ceiling Be Painted?

Picture of ceiling vent
Your vents may look different than this one, shown only as an example. There are many different styles.

When you’re painting the rooms in your home, you may have vents on the ceiling or the upper wall to consider. To make the room look uniform and the same color, you will also want to paint the vents. There are several methods that can be used to paint the ceiling vents and they depend on the material that the vents are made from and the condition they’re in.

Remove the Vents

As you contemplate the best way to paint the vents, you should remove and clean them. They will probably have several years of dirt and grime on them unless you’re very conscientious about vacuuming or washing them on occasion. Most vents may need to be soaked for a bit to loosen the dirt and grime, which you can do in warm water with mild dish soap.

After they have soaked for a bit, you should be able to wash them with a clean cloth or, if some of the grime doesn’t want to come off, lightly scrub them with a scratchpad. Once they are clean, rinse the vents and let them air dry. If you don’t want to soak metal vents, you can clean them by vacuuming them and then using rubbing alcohol to wipe them down thoroughly.

Painting the Vents

Whether the vents are metal or plastic, you can paint them in the same manner. The best way to apply paint is on the vent grills is by a Spray method. They will need to be primed and painted with two coats.  Once they are primed with high-quality bonding primer, you could paint them with a flat finish to match the ceiling or a semi-gloss or satin finish to match the woodwork. Here at Genesis Pro Painting we usually spray them with a Satin finish to give them a factory-like finish.

The Process

Take the vents to the garage or outside, if the wind is calm so that you won’t have paint fumes in the house. Lay them on some old cardboard or newspaper and shake the primer before applying it to the vents. Spray the vents with a steady back and forth motion to evenly coat them; once you’ve covered the entire vent, let it dry.

If you desire, you can spray them with more than one coat but one coat of primer should be sufficient if the vents are covered well. When the primer is dry, apply the paint in the same way with steady back and forth motions. Don’t forget to spray the screw heads too, unless you don’t mind the metal showing on your nicely painted vents. Once they are all painted and have dried, then you can put them back on the ceiling when the ceiling paint has dried.

You can brush the primer or paint it on but you need to be careful when doing so because you will have brush marks otherwise. However, spray paint is easier to apply, and you don’t have to worry about brush marks. Painting the vents is easy and it will make the ceiling look much better instead of just cleaning them, especially if it’s been some time since the ceiling was painted.

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