Take a look around any home with forced air heating or cooling and you’ll see vents everywhere. Most of these will be “supply” vents that push heated or cooled air into the interior of the home, but some will be “return” vents that pull air into the system. Either way, it’s a universal truth that most vents don’t look great.

Even if an air vent is ruining your carefully calibrated interior design, never cover or block it. These vents are crucial to the proper functioning of your HVAC system and the health of your living spaces, and they generally need at least a foot or so of clearance in front of them for proper airflow. That means that no matter how much you hate the vents in your floors and walls, you’re stuck with them. But there are a few things you can do to make them as invisible as possible.

The easiest way to make a vent disappear is to paint it to match the color or pattern of the surrounding area. You may need to take a color swatch to your local hardware store to get a color-matched paint that works with the vent material (metal, plastic, etc.), and you may want to consider using a primer to keep the paint from chipping, but painting a vent is the easiest way to hide it.

If the wall is covered in wallpaper, you can wallpaper the vent. Some companies will send you wooden boards that you can wallpaper and send back, and then they will send you a custom cut vent with your wallpaper for a perfect match. But this is a project that you can absolutely do yourself; if you have been able to hang your own wallpaper with any accuracy, with a little patience you should be able to cut a piece for your vent and then cut the holes out.