This Is: A Grate

This is a paint-covered Victorian-era grate.

This is vinegar.

This is a grinder.

This is spray paint.

This is a new, old vent grate.

I found this old grate on the floor in the back corner of the barn. The first picture in the post is what it looked like after I had already knocked off a considerable amount of paint in the barn and had chipped away some more with my paint scraper. I chipped off as much of the loose stuff as I could, and I put it in a vinegar bath to loosen up the rest of the paint and the rust. (That was no small feat considering how big it is. I had to use a storage tote.) It took a really long time to clean all the paint out of the nooks and crannies. I was starting to question my decisions in life. This is what it looked like after the vinegar bath and scraping. You could see there was still some surface rust on it.

So I took the grinder to it. Thankfully Tim had one in the shop and I didn't have to buy one. You can see some of the luster came back once I knocked the rest of the rust off.

From there it was just a matter of buying some spray paint and freshening it up. I did the back too, just for good measure. I was going to install it in my bathroom, but I don't think it's going to be worth the hassle of redoing the duct work to get it to fit in there right. So, I'll list it on my store and see if someone else wants to buy it. It shouldn't be too hard to sell. It's really nice.