Our bathroom fan has sounded like a plane crashing for the last few months. We knew it was dying a slow death as the motor squeaked, sputtered, and eventually gave out. While it was dying, the metal aspects of the fixture were being devoured by rust. It was one of those projects that I thought about doing EVERY SINGLE time I took a shower and then dismissed it and went on with my day.
We are not the most handy of folks, but I do like to save money whenever possible. My husband was ready to head to Lowe’s for a whole new fixture and fan, but I hit the pause button. Instead of paying $121 for the same fixture, I wanted to try to work with the one we had. He went and grabbed a $21 fan motor and I got to work on the fixture fixin’.
Rust can be an ugly monster. I wish I had taken a proper before photo. I didn’t really think I was going to blog about this, but it turns out it could be a helpful tip to someone. I should have lightly sanded the rust, but I was lazy and I simply spray painted over it all. I used a dark brown spray paint and it gave the perfect coverage with just one coat. I wasn’t done yet though. I wanted to match our faucet and other light fixture which are an oil rubbed bronze color. So I used Rustoleum oil based black paint (affiliate link) to give it that look. I’m no expert, but one coat with a sponge brush gave it the perfect finish I was looking for.
Don’t be afraid to try to save a fixture instead of replacing the whole thing. My endeavor was successful and saved us $100! It looks like we have a brand new fixture, it matches our bathroom better then our original chrome color too. I’m a happy girl and now I can think about other projects in the shower.
