The best way to paint tile? Don’t

Okay, I’m sure that there really is a way to successfully paint tile, you will not learn that way here.  It’s not all bad though, I’m happy with our newly painted tile wall as a quick fix.

To go along with the icky peach tub, toilet, sink and floor, there was a line of peach tiles along one wall.  Below the peach tiles were dingy off-white square tiles.  Here’s a reminder:

The bathroom was remodeled around the same year I was born, hopefully I am aging better than that grout was.  It had turned a pretty unattractive shade of yellow.

Originally, I was just going to paint the peach tiles a different color (you can see that only the top strip is primed above).  But the more I looked at the grout, the uglier it got, so I painted the whole wall white.

Zinser will tell you that their primer sticks to tile without even sanding.  As Dwight Shrute would say, FALSE.  I sanded, put on two coats of primer, kept it warm and dry for 7 days to cure, and still, it won’t stand up to much contact.  Thankfully, there won’t be much contact with that wall.

But it does look so much better.

The plan is (in a couple years) to replace the tub in the bathroom.  When we do that, we also plan on replacing all the tile.  Because of that, painting was the only option that made sense.  It’s a temporary fix, and it works.

1.5 bathroom projects down, 12.5 more to go.