Allow us to vent for a moment...

I've been working on my pet project, which is the duct work.  Tom says that it's a good thing the guy from the gas company pissed me off when he told me how ugly our duct work was, and that we should really invest $50,000 in some new spiral duct work, because he unknowingly threw down the gauntlet and challenged me to make the existing duct work look as cool as possible.  It's getting there.  Last summer I scrubbed years of dirt and nicotine stains off of the galvanized steel, and now I've been taking off the filthy vents and making them look new again.  Here are some before and afters:

How it looked when I removed it.

Just in case you really didn't know just how dirty it was.  Ewww!

After soaking in ammonia and water and getting a good scrub.

I've learned through this project that there's really nothing a little paint
can't make better.

The finished product!

The other neat thing I discovered is that the duct work was made by a division of Bethlehem Steel called Bethcon, which I had never heard of.  Ours was made 42 years and 16 days ago.  I found this out because I saw this when I removed one of the vents:

Tread on me

The upstairs floor is done!  Tom spent a couple of very late nights (we're talking 3:30 in the morning) working on it, but it was all worth it!  Some before and afters:

We even love all the scratches!