Northern Virginia painting contractor Blue Door Painters explains how to use paint to get a new look in a bathroom or kitchen for a fraction of the cost.
Many architects would agree that tile is the absolute best choice for any area of your home that is going to be getting wet or greasy on a regular basis. Assembled with a sturdy masonry technique and constructed of naturally water-resistant materials that will not rot or deform in perpetually moist conditions, tiles can take a soaking and are a piece of cake to clean. They’re also attractive, offering a wide range of mosaic options. So if your kitchen, backsplash, or bathroom is finished with tile, you shouldn’t have anything to complain about.
Unless, of course, you don’t like the way it looks. Since the aesthetics of tile are so versatile, (get it, versatile), and since they’re used in rooms like bathrooms and kitchens where people tend to get daring, trends in tiles have varied widely from decade to decade – even from year to year. If your home was built in the 1980s, for example, you might have some garish lime greens, rust oranges, and dark browns in there that aren’t really your cup of tea. Or if your home was tiled as part of the staging process for selling, it’s probably stark white, paired with white grout, which can lend a room an uninviting institutional look once the initial gleam wears off, and shows grime very easily.
But there you face a dilemma, because tiles can last a long time if properly installed, they are extremely functional, and compared to other substrates they are relatively expensive to rip out and replace just because you want a different look. After all, someone has to lay every single tile down individually, and that someone is going to charge you for it. So most homeowners tend to look at their unsatisfying bathroom or kitchen decor and think to themselves, “I sure do hate that color, but I’ll just have to live with it until it’s time to redo the whole bathroom anyways.”
This is a tragic failure to grasp the simple power of the world’s most versatile decorating tool: paint. Yes, tile comes pre-finished in a million colors, factory installed for a perfect, glowing finish. Yes, tile is extremely smooth and shiny, so resistant to marking that you can actually rub off the scribbles your son put on it when he got ahold of your Sharpie with nothing but soap and water. But that doesn’t mean you can’t paint it.
In fact, painting tile is a simple, easy, and cheap way to redecorate a kitchen or bathroom without a total overhaul. All it takes is three quick steps and the right choice of tools and equipment, and you can have a new look at a fraction of the cost, while preserving your room’s moisture resistance. Let Blue Door Painters teach you how:
Step 1: Prime. You need to clean and prime your tiles just like you prime any other substrate prior to painting. The extremely important difference here is that you need to prime tile with a specially designed primer built for high-gloss surfaces. Most paints won’t grip your tile any better than the mold in your bathtub or the errant Sharpie did; that’s the beauty and power of tile. But there are special chemicals designed to penetrate the outer layer of the tile’s glaze and grip hold, anchoring down a strong film; these chemicals have been mixed into high-gloss primers to make them perfect for the job. Try out Sherwin-Williams Adhesion Primer for a stellar example. Make sure that your tile is squeaky clean and completely dry to help your primer work its magic. Use a small, soft foam roller to apply your coatings over tile, to make sure that your primer and paint layers get spread evenly over both the tile and the grout.
Step 2: Paint. If you primed right, you can be flexible with your paint. Using a similar small, soft foam roller, get creative with color, design, and texture to change your tired or ugly tile design into the color scheme of your dreams. You don’t need to use any particular brand, but you should aim for a flat or mid-gloss paint; the opposite of what you usually want in a bathroom. We’ll tell you why in a second. If you need some help picking colors, check out our Color Combo Special blogs, or take advantage of Blue Door Painters complimentary color consultation service.
Step 3: Polyurethane. You want your finished surface to be as shiny and stain-resistant as the original tile; otherwise, your redecoration was a functional downgrade. When bathrooms and kitchens are painted, they’re usually topped with high-gloss paint to achieve maximal cleanability, but we told you to work with flat or mid-gloss paint. Why? Because for our final coating, we’re going to add a powerful, shiny, clear protective layer of polyurethane. Polyurethane is nothing but gloss and power, with no pigment whatsoever to interrupt its protective strength. Covering your tiles with polyurethane will bring their performance up to the standard you want, and will also restore them to the expected tile-shininess – and it will stick better to a flat or mid-gloss paint coat. Apply two coats of polyurethane with a medium-firm, high-quality synthetic brush, using long, even strokes, and sanding in between coatings with a 350-grit sandpaper.
Read the label carefully to determine how long it takes your polyurethane to dry, and keep moisture, people, and pets from coming into contact with your polyurethane until it has cured completely. Once it’s done, you should once again have a strong, shiny tile surface – but now in a color and design that you can really appreciate.