Saving the Vents (part 1)

Like all of the wood work, the previous owners painting the vents in bright colors with goupy paint. (Like seriously, at some point don't you think it is just silly, but I guess ya gotta use all the paint in the bucket...) here they are before:

To remove the paint I was hoping that sandblasting would be a quick method. The machine that I had access to cleaned up tarnished metal fine, but didn't take the paint off in any kind of hurry.

So Dad took them up to Uncle Don's metal shop and his sandblaster was much more effective! Here is a picture of them with the primer coat on:

I wanted them to be oil rubber bronze.  But hindsight is always 20/20.  If you are going this route I would recommend doing a base coat with a dark brown/black spray paint and do the final coat in the Oil rubbed bronze.  It is more expensive and one can didn't even fully cover these four vents.

Next step: buy more paint