The sad thing about selling your home is all of a sudden you become extremely critical of every single little detail. All those little things that you've lived with and overlooked become the things you focus on. In most cases they cost little to fix, take little time to fix but somehow got overlooked because other repairs and maintenance became a higher priority. I keep thinking what a shame we didn't just get to the little things like replacing or paint vent covers, changing out electrical outlets and changing out those ugly light fixtures earlier so at least we could have enjoyed them while we were here. Ah well, live and learn.
Painted
Forced air heating/air conditioning (HVAC) have two types of vents. The larger vent covers are for the cold air return. As cold air settles near the floor it is drawn back into the heating system to be heated then returned through the smaller heat vents. Any vent cover on a vent that comes up through the floor takes a fair amount of abuse. Metal vent covers will get scratched and/or bent from walking on or being hit by furniture. They develop rust in areas where they get wet.
If the vent cover is in good condition and not bent, remove it and wash well. Dry well. Remove any rust spots with steel wool then use a tack cloth to any dust. Place the cover right side up on top of a cardboard box in a sunny location outside. Spray with alkyd enamel paint. Let dry then spray on a second coat. Let dry well then put the vent cover back into its place. This is a very low cost way to spruce up metal vent covers and one that can easily be done anytime needed or if you want to custom match a vent colour to a room.
Plastic
The downside to sprucing up the details is you find more things that need to be sprucing up. I decided the vent cover (top) in the entrance hall needed to be replaced so used a plastic cover (bottom). The downside to plastic is they only come in certain colours but there is Krylon spray paint available for painting plastic. I don't know how well it would work on plastic vent covers.
The replacement vent cover highlights the flooring issue. The kicker here is we have ceramic tile sitting in the garage ready to tile the floor except waiting for weather we can do this as it would put the side door out of commission for at least a weekend. The realtor said not to worry about doing the tiling so I will be onto plan B.
I'm going to strip the floor using household ammonia to remove all the wax build-up. I know there is a wax build-up because any standing water leaves white marks. Once the wax is removed I will use a liquid wax to bring up the shine. The floor itself is in good condition just a bit dated so hopefully this will make the entrance look good for showing.
Garden Gnome
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