Crazy Amazing Ugly Ceiling Fan $35 Makeover

We have 3 really ugly ceiling fans in our new home. One in the living room, one in the master bedroom and one in the kids bedroom. I would just switch them out for new light fixtures but Brian likes the utility of the fan.

More modern ceiling fans are at least $200. To replace all of them would be $600! And with everything else I would rather do, I'm just not ready to spend that much on ceiling fans. So this is my cheap alternative! Also....this is useful for renters or people who don't want to mess around with the installation of a new light fixture.

PS The top photo is of the ceiling fan in our living room and the bottom one is of the one in our bedroom. I forgot to take a "before" photo of the bedroom fan but other than the number of light bulbs they look pretty much the same. 90s era. Brass. Glass shades. Blech!

I have to admit. I'm SOOO pleased with the result!

I'll show you how I did it below but the total cost for this makeover was only $35!!!!

From the side.

This is what I see when I wake up every morning;-)

In action! I will let you know that it did reduce the amount of air flow the fan produces which is interesting because the blades are much lighter than the original blades. It must have something to with their width. But it's still enough air for us.

So the most obvious part of this transformation came from replacing the old ceiling fan blades with these blades I purchased off Amazon for only $26. Comes in a set of 5 but they always send you an extra blade so you actually get 6. Also comes in a lighter shade. Also comes in green off this site for $31 including shipping.

Then I purchased this 3/8" 50-ft sisal rope from Home Depot for only $9.

I also used black spray paint and gold spray paint which I already had on hand. If you need to buy spray paint I recommend using Rustoleum's Metallic Gold Spray paint for the inside of the glass shades and any kind of matte or stain black spray paint for the brass portions of the ceiling fan.

So first remove the fan blades from the fan. My fan had 5 arms that attached to the center. I removed these arms first. Then I removed the blades from the arms.

Then I sprayed the brass black.  I also sprayed the arms black (not shown). To prevent the ceiling from getting sprayed I cut a piece of cardboard in the shape of the fan's base and held it to the ceiling while I sprayed. I also stuffed the light bulbs with paper towels. Also don't forget to spray your chain now if you want it to be black (which I forgot).

 Now for the blades. Maybe part of the reason why these blades are so cheap is because they come with no way to attach them to your fan blade arms. But if you're in the least bit handy this shouldn't be a problem for you. What I did was line my arms with the blades and made a pencil mark where the holes should be. Then I used my power drill to make three holes. If you don't own a power drill you can probably just try to poke a small hole.

 Then I screwed the arms to the front of the blades where the holes were made. The top two screwed from behind the fan blade and the bottom one screwed from the front.

 Now screw the fan arms back to the ceiling fan.

 Now you can skip this step if you want and buy Edison bulbs and just go bare. I did that at first but I don't like the yellow light that Edison bulbs give off so I took off the ugly glass shades. I didn't take a picture of this next step but now would be the time to paint the inside of your glass shades.

I first left them clear. But it didn't look quite right when I screwed them back on. Then I painted them white which did not look good either. It just clashed with the black. Then I painted them black which looked good but not when the lights were turned on. Finally I went with gold which looked good both when the lights were turned off and on.

 Using hot glue I wrapped the rope around the glass.

 Voila! So pretty.

Now just reattach your shades to your lights.

And you're done! Enjoy your new gorgeous ceiling fan and all the compliments you'll get when people lay their eyes upon it:-)