Has anyone ever painted the tiles in their bathroom with good success? I have a shower floor that really needs work as well as some wall trim. I found a company in Southern California that uses a special technique to do it, but they're so expensive. I wondered if someone else has tried this. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated. Thanks
I have painted tile in my bathroom that the previous owners did. It is peeling. Obviously, some sort of different technique must be used than what they did. The coverage is good, but it does look like painted tile. It doesn't look great -- even before it started to peel. But it was an improvement on the dated tile pattern.
I paint custom botanical tiles for a living. Of course I use a kiln & glazes (not paint) to set the colors. But if you'd like to paint your own artwork or even each tile there are several specialty paints that are made to be permanent on already fired & glazed ceramic pottery & tiles. I like a brand called "Glossies" by "Liquitex". I've seen these sold in the higher-end painting supplies at Michael's craft store. There is another brand called "Porceline" (I believe) sold at most art & painting supply stores. The main trick is to wash your hands well to rid them of any natural oils & hand lotion then clean each tile well with rubbing alcohol before you begin.
If you don't want to do actual artwork, stenciling or stamping on your tiles, then you should still clean your tiles with rubbing alcohol & prime them with a "high-adheasive" primer, then paint them. BUT, to get a good finished look you'll have to go back in with a thin artist paint brush & repaint the grout lines... You may also be able to find some pin striping to use to mask off the grout before you paint.
If it were me, & I wanted a professional looking job I'd go with paint that's made especially for painting glass & ceramic (read above) & not a home depot type of product. But it mostly depends on what color you have & what color you are changing it to. Your best bet would be to not change the color of tile at all, but instead use a different color that you like better & use your tile color as an accent color. You can kind of make your tile color "disappear" by using another color. EXAMPLE: If you''ve got a pink tiled bathroom, you could use Black as your main color & buy a black rug & black accent pieces & black towels & before you know it the pink has disappeared beneath the stronger color of black. This technique can look much better than a somewhat tacky & fake looking paint job on tiles. (if it's done wrong).
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Request: Painting Ceramic Tile
Archived on 03/30/2008
I have blue ceramic tile as a backsplash in in kitchen. I want to paint it white. Any ideas on how to do this? What prep is needed? Sure appreciate any and all help.
Thanks, Renee from ST. Louis, MO
Answers:
RE: Painting Ceramic Tile
Yes, Absolutely! Just be sure to use a primer coat first.
By darween
RE: Painting Ceramic Tile
Yes, it can be done. Primer will definitely help. My neighbor did this, and the only word of caution I can give you is to be careful how you clean it.
Do not clean the painted surface with an abrasive cleanser like comet. It scratches off the paint.
Chelsea
RE: Painting Ceramic Tile
Home depot sells a paint to use on ceramic tile. I used it. works great. Just prime first. (03/14/2005)
By margo
RE: Painting Ceramic Tile
Yes, you can certainly paint your ceramic wall tiles, but first you'll need to use a TILE PRIMER which you should be able to find in a hardware store along with a specific TILE PAINT. I have just painted my kitchen cupboard doors using laminate primer and laminate paint. The laminate and tile paints can be tinted to various colors but you can also just do white. It does advise to be careful when cleaning this paintwork and not to use anything abrasive. Just try to clean up any splashes and spills as they occur. I was pretty happy with the laminate paint when I'd finished and was prepared to paint my splash back tiles also, but hubby decided to retile instead :)
Hope this helps! (03/09/2006)
By jojo
RE: Painting Ceramic Tile
I painted tile in my bathroom. I used a paint from Lowe's that is a primer just for that. It came out great. Good luck (03/11/2006)
By melinda
RE: Painting Ceramic Tile
Yeah! I saw Debbie Travis do this on "Debbie Travis' Painted House' on HGTV. It looked really neat. It must be pretty durable, because she did around a shower. I don't remember all her steps, but here's her website so you can look it up: www.painted-house.com Good Luck! Shu-shu (03/13/2006)
By Shu-shu
RE: Painting Ceramic Tile
You must use a primer that will adhere to the tile. If you use a general purpose primer it will peel off. Try going to national brand paint store like ICI Paints or Sherwin-Williams. You will get sound advice from them. (06/25/2006)
Ceramic tile can easily be painted, the key part is to make sure you use the right primer. You want to use a specialty primer, not a regular wall primer. The primer will bond to and block out the color of the tile which is what you want. Then you can use your choice of gloss or satin finish as the final coat.
(08/24/2007)
RE: Painting Ceramic Tile
We actually did this in our bathroom, it worked awesome. We had powder blue tiles all over. We used a "gripper primer" which takes a bit of effort and very smelly. Make sure you use a proper mask when applying the gripper. Then you can pick you color of paint, just make sure its a glossy finish. Worked really well for us. (01/13/2008)
