3 reasons you should paint your bath and shower tile.

“Paint my bath and shower tile?!”

It sounds crazy, I know! But hear me out…

Reason 1 – You just really HATE the color your tile is currently and you need a change.

I had already made some changes in my master bathroom that looked great! But this beige tile was sticking out like a sore thumb!

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Reason 2 – You plan on replacing it one day, but for right now you don’t have the budget and you can’t stand to look at it another second!

I’ve had bigger plans for this bathroom since I first started giving it a makeover. But I knew it would be a while before those plans were able to happen, so my temporarily solution was to paint it till I could replace it with something beautiful one day!

Reason 3 – YOU DON’T NEED A REASON! It’s your home and you can do with it what you please.

I don’t design my house around what the next home owner years down the road will want. I design my home in a way I will love it while I’m here. If the next home owners would like to make changes that better suit their needs, great! Now, of course if we sold before I could get this replaced I would disclose this to them, if that detours them from buying, then on to the next buyers.

This was not the design style I wanted in my home when I bought it, but I knew I could turn it into something I would love!

Now, let’s get into the nitty gritty of this project and how it’s holding up after 3 years.

I wasn’t planning on removing the shower door. But you can’t paint on top of silicone caulk and when I tried to remove it, it just wasn’t coming off.

So the shower door came down. I figured this way I could scuff it up and paint it black.

But when I finally got it off, I saw how much mold had collected INSIDE the frame even though it was all caulked and sealed. I couldn’t bring myself to put it back on, plus with my future plans for this shower I would need a new shower door anyways. So I removed it and scraped off all the silicone caulk. But not all of it came off so I tried WD-40, my orbital sander, a razor, and anything else I could think of that would remove it. I got it off enough to where I couldn’t feel it to the touch and I thought I was good.

I then cleaned it really well and taped everything off. The cleaner I used was very fumey so I put on a mask to try and help protect my lungs from it.

Then it was time to start painting, this paint is meant for sinks, tubs and showers, and this was also very fumey! My bathroom window doesn’t open and I didn’t have a respirator, which I HIGHLY recommend if you are going to attempt to do this project.

I started painting with the Homax Tough as Tile paint I picked up and quickly realized I needed a mask and lots of breaks! Luckily it was a nice day out so we opened our doors and windows to help vent the house. Our neighbor 3 houses down commented that she could smell the paint from her house!

Again, I strongly recommend a respirator mask!

You want to make sure you follow the instructions very closely because if you wait too long in between coats it won’t work right, same if you paint too soon…like I did. For some reason I thought the instructions said to wait 10 minutes in between each coat but it actually said “wait at least 3 hours between each coat, but no longer than 6 hours.” I have no idea where I got the 10 minutes from, but that was my “newby” mistake.

Once I was done painting I realized you could see a bit of where the silicone caulk had been for the shower door frame. But I didn’t mind it too much since I was adding a shower curtain there and I knew I will be replacing all of the tile one day.

As of today, it’s holding up pretty well. The bath tile is pretty perfect but it doesn’t have wear and tear like our shower does.

Our shower is doing surprisingly well after 3 years even though I didn’t apply it correctly. I half expected it to peel right off. There are only a few chips and bubbles, but I still love it way more than the beige it was before.