At Home

There are some things we just put up with for the sake of comfort—unflattering shoes, unflattering gym clothes, and Polarfleece among them. Ugly radiators need not be on this list, but often are. And as the weather warms up (and we forget just how much we once loved and needed those dear heat sources), their unsightly space-eating quality becomes even more vexing. Here are a few ideas pulled from around the web for making those metallic-painted heaters less noticeable—or at the very least, more fun.

Photo Credit: Ellen Lupton and Abbott Miller/Design Sponge

Option 1: Paint it to make it stand out.
The late, great Blueprint magazine (full disclosure: my former workplace) once did a fantastic story about decorating with paint, which featured a shot of a vibrant, chartreusey-yellow-painted radiator and heat pole (or whatever those things are called) against a grayish-teal wall, and it felt so modern and fresh. Design Sponge's house tour of Ellen Lupton and Abbott Miller's Baltimore home shows another example of bright radiator-as-focal piece. See how nicely the fire-engine red plays off the artwork they have hanging nearby? NB: If you plan to paint your radiators, be sure to use the appropriate paint (just ask the folks at your hardware store), and be aware that metallic paints lower the heat output of the radiator, so don't use those in a room that needs a lot of warmth come winter.

Photo Credit: Amber Radiator Covers

Option 2: Paint it to make it blend in.
Not everyone will go for the above option, I realize, and that's okay. Coating the whole thing—radiator, radiator cover, accessories to sit on top, walls and wainscoting—in one shade can feel equally design-y and well-thought-out. (This is the best photo I could find in the amount of time I had, but I feel like you could get really get creative with this option—maybe even wallpapering the radiator cover and the wall behind it?)

Credit: 1,001 Communications

Credit: 1,001 Communications

Option 3: Turn it into something else. I found this adorable project in an old decorating magazine, "1,001 Decorating Ideas" vol. 50, from 1974. I wish the photos were in color, but you can still appreciate the spirit. The sheep's head and tail are cut from plywood, painted, and hung on the wall, and the arrow motif (on the left) is painted onto the radiator and continued on the wall with Con-Tact paper.

Photo Credit: Fireplacescreens.com

Option 4: Shield it with a fireplace cover. This is strictly theoretical at this point, but I really think it could work and be nice. It's all about what you pick and how you trick it out. I feel like if you got a cool modern, geometric design for the cover and maybe painted it and the radiator to match (or painted the radiator a nice contrasting color), and just stood the cover in front of it, it could be really lovely.

Photo Credit: Edward/Ikea Hacker

Option 5: Trick out a traditional cover, or hack one on your own. Almost every traditional radiator cover is custom-made to some degree, so when you're picking out the wood and the mesh patterns you'd want, keep in mind ways you could adapt it to be extra-cool in your home. Want to add a fresh coat of paint? Think you could add a shelving unit on top and make it feel like a built-in? Or take a page from Ikeahacker Edward's project: he combined three faces of an old storage cube and a shelf to make his own radiator nook, and probably saved a fair amount of money in the process.


















What do you do with your radiator, if you have one? Hide it or leave it in plain sight?

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