Adventures in Baseboard Heaters...

So, we live in an old house. Have I mentioned that? haha!! Prior to us buying it, it was a rental property for many years. Most recently, it was used as a group home for developmentally challenged kids and teens. With that many young people in the house, it certainly took some abuse! Even now, there is graffiti inside some of the closets (mostly stuff like "AG + BD 4EVERRR"). Ahh, young love... :) But one thing is certain: our baseboard heater covers have definitely seen better days.

I need to clarify for some of my friends, since baseboard heaters were a foreign concept for me before moving here. Our house has a boiler down in the basement, fueled by heating oil. The boiler heats up the water, which is then sent off through copper pipes to different parts of the house. The pipes run along the interior walls and heat up the house. They are covered with these metal baseboard heater covers. And now you know!

Anyway... back to my beat-up baseboard covers... Once you start fixing up wooden baseboards and window frames, it just makes the baseboard heater covers look THAT much worse. This is the endless cycle of home improvement, my friends! I actually finished one coat of paint on the window frame, and made a rash decision to take one of the covers apart. Mostly just to see if I could. It wasn't hard! There were little screws at each end, which needed to be removed:

Then the end caps slid right off. I lifted the flat front panel straight up, and it popped right off. Easy peasy!

I also discovered this gigantic hole in the wall. Mouse hole? Right through the metal?? Who knows. Actually, it looks more like the pipe used to actually run through the wall that way, and was later rerouted through the floor. Regardless of the cause, it is still a big hole in the wall! I stuffed it full of insulation, then shoved some steel wool in there for good measure. I am a pro at this by now. Though any mouse that ever gets in is doomed to Death by Cat. Charlie is one mean mouser!

While I had the cover off, I vacuumed it out really good. Dust on the metal fins makes heating less efficient. And I need every ounce of efficiency I can get!

So, then it was time to paint. This particular section wasn't too bad. If there had been more rust, I would have sanded it down with a palm sander, then applied a rust-blocking primer paint. But this section was just scratched, dented, and the wrong color (all the trim in the house is WHITE, and the baseboard heaters are ECRU. ECRU, I tell you! Faux pas!!). I went to the store with the intention of buying white "Appliance Paint." Yeah... they only had Black and Biscuit (Ecru!). I ended up with this instead, which the store employee assured me would work for this project:

Painting was easy! I took the loose pieces outside and sprayed them there. And then I masked everything off very carefully to spray the part along the wall. It went on very smoothly, and the final coat was white and shiny and MUCH cleaner-looking!

The problem? I think that the glossy finish really emphasizes the dings and dents, and that's no good! Replacing all the baseboard covers in the house is costly, so that's not going to happen. But I think I am going to repaint this one using appliance paint (when I find it) for a slightly less glossy finish. I will update when I do! For now, though, this is definitely an improvement... I just need to perfect it before I move on to the other sections! :)