Toning down the "ick" factor in the kitchen
The kitchen exhaust fan is old. Possibly even original to the house. It also looked like it hadn't been cleaned since it was installed.
Marc took the cover down and cleaned it. It's silver... not black and white. The white was just the top-most layer of paint. The black was icky encrustion of schmutz. Since we haven't yet investigated the world of paint stripping, Marc used a scary cocktail of every noxious chemical we have in the house. It turns out that "Oven-Off" makes a relatively decent paint stripper. Marc says it took him two hours (not including the polishing).
Before
After
At some point the kitchen ceiling was painted a very scary shade of fire engine red. I shudder to think what this would do to that tiny little room. ICK.