Caulk Up

I finally caulked the bath tub, and it looks pretty good if I do say so myself.

Newly Caulked Bathtub looking mighty fine!  Tub spout not fully installed.

This was actually my first time caulking a bathtub, so I am not going to give you a play by play on my caulking technique (it was pretty bad).  I am however going to tell you why my bathroom caulk looks good now despite my poor technique, and a few lessons I learned along the way.

Before I took the plunge I read a LOT of tutorials on how to caulk a bathroom.  Here are a few:

• http://www.familyhandyman.com/bathroom/remodeling/how-to-re-caulk-a-shower-or-bathtub/view-all
• http://www.wikihow.com/Caulk-Shower-Enclosures
• http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/how-to/intro/0,,20050103,00.html

There are a few things that nearly all of the tutorials seem to agree on, like using painters tape, and caulk that is supposed to be used in a bathroom, and there are a few things that the tutorials seemed to disagree about, like the angle the tube of caulk should be cut at, and angle that the caulk should be applied.  I decided to use the advice that the tutorials all agreed on, and do what felt right for the rest of it.

To angle or not to angle that is the question.  Also - Check out our mad graphic design skills :)

Here is what I learned:

1.  Initially you should cut the smallest possible hole in the tube of caulk – you can always cut it larger.

I cut the hole on the tube of caulk too big, and as a result the caulk came out MUCH faster and thicker than I had anticipated.  It was a bit of a mess.

Hole cut MUCH too large.

2.  Use painters tape to define your caulk lines (and protect you from excess caulk).

This SAVED me.  If I had not done this the caulk that I applied would have looked SOOOO much worse than it did before I removed the horrible preexisting stuff.  As I said previously, I used too much caulk, WAY too much caulk.  As I was smoothing the caulk into the grooves it belongs in, the excess caulk built up on the sides of the tape.  Since the tape was easily removed, this was not a problem at all.  Had I not used the tape, all of that excess caulk would have gotten all over my tile.

Defining those caulk lines

3.  Wide painters tape is better than narrow painter’s tape.

I used thin painters tape, and it was amazing, but because I had so much excess caulk some of the excess still ended up on my tile.  Had I used wider tape I think all of the caulk would have stayed on the tape.

4.  Keep a wet rag nearby.

If you can get a wet rag on errant caulk as soon as possible it cleans up pretty easily.  Looking at my completed caulking job you would have no idea that wayward caulk got all over my bathtub.

5.  A finger is a surprisingly good caulk applicator.

I saw a lot of different tools recommended to smooth the caulk out once it was applied, from specially designed professional implements to plastic spoons to ice.  I just used my finger, and it turned out great.  I was able to tell how much pressure should be applied, and my hands were able to catch the caulk that didn’t pile up on the tape.

6.  Keep paper towels nearby – a lot of them.

All of the caulk that piled up in my hands (see #5) had to go somewhere.  Many paper towels were needed to contain it all.

7.  Work Quickly

While caulk is pretty fresh it is easy to manipulate, adjust, and correct.  As soon as it gets a “skin” you might as well leave the mistake, because trying to correct things will just make them worse.  The good news is that if you have all your supplies ready to go, caulking goes remarkably quickly.  I went from applying the tape to pulling it back off in under 30 minutes.

Check out that beautifully applied caulk.

Finally, the hardest of all the lessons I learned.  Tape will pull epoxy paint off tile.

As frequent readers know we painted our bathroom tile with a Rust-Oleum Tub and Tile Refinishing Kit.  Despite waiting more than the prescribed 3 days to allow the paint to cure, and despite our excessive prep work, the painters tape used to apply the caulk removed the tile paint when it was pulled off.  This was REALLY upsetting to us.  The bare patches of tile were like emotional black holes, sucking all of the happy feelings out of the room and threatening a permanent fugue state.  Firebeard immediately mixed and applied more of the paint to keep us all from falling into pits of despair.  I didn’t get a picture first.

With the amount of work that we put into painting the tile, we had hoped that it would last for a least 2 or 3 years while we were doing work on the rest of the house.  Right now it doesn’t look like that is going to be likely.  But on a positive note, the caulk should last for many years to come.

Tile Time

Last time I told you about the self-induced nightmare of prepping our tub surround tile to be painted.  It was an activity that should have taken hours, but took us over a week.  We went so far beyond the manufacture’s recommendations for surface prep that by the end we were questioning our own sanity, and wondering if it was all worthwhile.

Near the End of our Tile Prep Nightmare.

The painting portion of this project didn’t take that long, but it wasn’t a lot of fun.  With our Rust-oleum Tub and Tile Refinishing kit Firebeard was able to do 3 coats of paint on the tile during the course of several hours while I was at work, and I am still thanking him for saving me from this.  The paint smelled so badly and so strongly that when I got home I could smell it feet from our front door.  Even with windows open and fans on It was truly, overwhelmingly bad.  Firebeard had been wearing a pretty high quality respirator while painting all day, and was still feeling pretty sick from the fumes when I got home.  We actually left the house for several hours that evening to give the paint smell a bit more time to dissipate, and it was JUST bearable by the time we got home.  Fortunately The Boy and The Girl were on a sleepover, so they were not subjected to the worst of the smell, but it took an additional 2 days for the lingering paint smell to leave the house, and even now, about a week later, the bathroom still smells unpleasantly odd.

Rust-Oleum 7860519 Tub And Tile Refinishing 2-Part Kit, White Buy on Amazon

Per Firebeard the actual painting was not as easy as a typical painting project.  The epoxy paint dried quickly, so there was very little time to fix mistakes.  The paint also seemed to eat the foam paint brushes and rollers he was using, and a new one had to be used for each coat, or he risked pieces of foam being embedded in the paint.  Combine that with the brain killing fumes, and this was not one of his favorite projects.  However, even given all of the brilliance of hindsight, he is considering getting another kit and doing one more round of painting before we caulk because a few spots did not get as thoroughly covered as he would have liked.  I guess it couldn’t have been that bad if he is willing to do it again.

Before - Pink Tile

After - Bright White Tile

There is no denying that the overall look of the tile now is a tremendous improvement.  It looks clean and fresh, and surprisingly shinny.  It does have a slightly odd texture now though, a bit like orange peel texture but more subtle.  We also have a few spots that are a less perfect than others as is pretty typical when painting by hand rather than with a sprayer.  This doesn’t really bother me, but it is worth knowing if you decide to do it yourself.  The paint also perfectly covered the patched holes left behind after removing the sliding shower doors which was a big plus (I will tell you how I patched those next time).

Close up of the tile's new texture.

One of the less perfect Spots.

So was all of the prep work worth it?  At this point it is hard to tell.  Bad prep work usually doesn’t become obvious until something has been used for a while and all of the paint suddenly starts peeling off, and good prep work usually goes unnoticed.  What I can say for sure is that we did not experience the peeling or puckering paint that some Amazon reviewers said they experienced.  So far our paint seems VERY securely attached, whether that is from our obsessive prep work or not, I don’t know.

Bottom Line, Knowing what we know now would we do it over again?

I think we probably would.  The improvement in the tile’s appearance was worth the effort we put in, but if we were going to do it again, I think we would put in less effort.    The instructions on the box are there for a reason.  They have been tested, and if they didn’t work they wouldn’t be on the box.  We went totally overboard on the prep work, making this project much harder than it should have been, and I think we have learned our lesson. 

In conclusion, painting the tile was worth it, follow the directions on the box, and for god’s sake ventilate, ventilate, ventilate. 

Tile doesn't sand

If you have ever watched Supernatural, you know that the beginning of every show starts with backstory.  So much happens in each show that missing a couple of shows would leave you completely lost.  The backstory provides the context for the current insanity and makes it seem like the logical progression of events rather than a complete plot twist.  I feel like this post deserves backstory, so that you will know what brought us to this point.  We got to the current insanity through a logical progression of events.

We started out just a few weeks ago with the dream of a quick bathroom refresh.  A little paint here, some accessories there, and voila, a brand new bathroom.  Sure we wanted to fix a few small things along the way and remove those disgusting shower doors, but those were quick projects that wouldn’t take any time at all, right? 

Wrong!  We were wrong.  So far everything has taken about twice as long as we expected it to.  Well that was until we tried to deal with the tub surround tiles that looked pink after painting the bathroom.  This project was supposed to take a day of work, and 3 days of dry time.  So far  it has already taken 2 weeks, and we are all feeling a bit crazed.

So, what brought us to this point?  Here is the back story;

Sickly Beige Tile.

Next to our swatch of Paper White paint, our tiles looked sickly beige.  While I am not a fan of sickly beige, I felt like it wouldn’t stand out, and I could pretend that they were just slightly off white and I could live with it until we were able to do a full bathroom remodel in a couple of years. 

Tile looks pink after painting.

Once the Paper White covered the entire wall the tile no longer looked sickly beige.... it looked pink.  I will admit, I had been hoping that the slightly cool Paper White would tone down the yellow in the tile a little bit, but it worked a little too well.  The yellow undertones in the tile were nearly eliminated, but the red undertones were accentuated. 

After about a day of trying to convince myself that the pink tile didn’t bother me (and failing miserably), I started looking for a solution.  I had a couple of options;

• Living with the pink tile until we could do a complete remodel, the pink grating on my aesthetic sensibilities every time I walked by the bathroom.
• Getting one of those drop in plastic bathtub surrounds (I would rather live with the pink tile)
• Tiling the bathtub surround (I seriously considered this option, but it was so far out of the budget that this really wasn’t a viable possibility)
• Painting the tile

Painting the tile is not something I would have EVER considered prior to this, but suddenly it was an option that seemed filled with possibly.  Since we had already removed all of the caulk there wouldn't be that much prep work.  It would only take a couple of days from start to finish.  I wouldn't have to spend a fortune on new tile, and I could get the white tile I had wanted in the first place.  I could have my cake and eat it too.  In retrospect, painting the tile was too good to be true, and I should have seen this as a warning sign from the beginning.  

We decided to go with the Rust-oleum Tub and Tile refinishing kit.  It is a 2 part epoxy acrylic paint that can be rolled on like standard wall paint, but should hold up well under high humidity.  It was only $25 on Amazon when we bought it, and it had pretty great reviews.  The only warning we repeatedly saw from the Amazon reviewers was that the tile needed to be well prepared.  "No problem," we thought.  The kit would be delivered in two days (thanks Prime!), and we would do the prep while we were waiting on the kit and dive right into the painting when it arrived.  

What did the prep entail you ask?

1. Removing all of the caulk from the tile that would be painted
2. Sanding the tile. 

We had this in the bag.  We had already removed the caulk - step one done.  All we had left to do was sand the tile.  The Amazon reviewers really stressed this part.  The most knowledgeable (sounding) among them recommended that the shine be removed from the tile so that the paint would be able to grip the tile.  This made perfect sense (its what you do when you refinish wood), so this is what we set out to do.  

Our tub spout just twisted off.

About 40 years worth of hard water deposits.

First we had to remove our newly installed tub faucets, and the tub spout.  The tub spout just twisted off.  We were shocked to find what we think is nearly 40 years of hard water deposits.  It was pretty gross.  The good news is that when everything goes back on we will have a shiny new tub spout to match the new faucets.

We started sanding the tile with the 220 grit sandpaper that the kit recommended.  It didn't seem to do anything at all.

Then we switches to 60 grit (super course) sandpaper.  It made the tile shinier.  

I went to the web searching for a tile sanding solution and found Emery paper, a sandpaper made from silicon carbide.  We grabbed the only kind they had at Home Depot (which did not fit on any of our electric sanders) and went to town on the tile.  It worked, but sanding the tile by hand was maddenly slow.

After the belt sander.

Then finally one day while I was at work Firebeard took out the big guns - the belt sander.  While still at work I texted to ask how it was going, and the above picture was the response.  All of the flat tile surfaces had been throughly sanded and were ready to be painted, but the curved edges of the tiles were as shiny as ever.  

At this point we were starting to get a bit desperate, and I opted for some chemical warfare.  Muriatic acid is a fairly strong acid that when pretty heavily diluted is sometimes used as a hail Mary bathroom cleaner.  It is used heavily diluted and as a last resort because it has the tendency to remove the shine/finish from tile, porcelain, etc.  Fortunately this generally negative tendency of muriatic acid was exactly what we needed.  We strapped on the safety gear, and allowed the muriatic acid to eat as much of the remaining finish off the tiles as we dared (while keeping it off of everything else).

After this we did one last round of hand sanding, and then very through cleaning, and we were finally ready to paint.

Next time on, "This is taking significantly longer than we thought it would Mini Bathroom Remodeling Project,"  the painted tile.

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