Painting tiles

pineapple

I am doing up a house that has a shower room with plain tiles the colour of vomit. :eek:
Looking at a complete re-tiling job which however will be expensive. So have been wondering about painting them. Does this ever look anything other than a botch job? Has anyone ever painted a whole wall of tiles and what did it look like?

xyz123

If u can get every speck of dust, soap etc out of tiles then the results can be acceptable. Preparation is key to this and it will be fiddly and hard work....

Stevie_Palimo

If you have some pretty simple cuts to make here I'd personally look at doing it yourself, Putting tiles up is pretty easy to be honest and would be far better than some bodged up paint job over existing ones.

Plenty of guide and help links online to show you how it is done, Tiles can be purchased cheap to these days.

pineapple

I'm ok with filling, sanding and painting but this is beyond me I think. The existing tiles will have to come off along with residual tile cement and revealing who knows what horrors (if my experience with the woodchip is anything to go by :eek:). Plus since this is partly a wet room there are two tiled walls and a fully tiled floor - with the tiles angled down towards the shower drain. It's a big job for little old me.

Le_Kirk

I have successfully painted tiles using standard tile paint. Providing preparation is thorough it looks good. The horizontal tiles (window ledge) were great but the vertical ones not so as the paint had a tendency to sink (oh nasty unscrupulous gravity) even though I avoided "runs." Not sure about painting a large area in a shower. The force of the water might erode the paint over time. Check out the type and specification of paint available - it was some years ago when I did mine.

dbriggs

Always wondered about painting tiles. Is the paint expensive to do this?

googler

dbriggs wrote: »

Always wondered about painting tiles. Is the paint expensive to do this?

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=tile+paint&oq=tile+paint&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.3265j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8#q=tile+paint&tbm=shop

Crikey, this stuff's cheap

http://www.brooklyntrading.co.uk/p-10323-international-waterproof-bathroom-tile-paint-winter-cloud-750ml.aspx?utm_source=google&utm_medium=Product_Search&utm_campaign=google_base&CAGPSPN=pla&gclid=Cj0KEQiAlae1BRCU2qaz2__t9IIBEiQAKRGDVSMDzSf9fSHzw24BSQSoOnbQBx_FTdLXO0HoAWth4b0aAs9X8P8HAQ

pineapple

That International brand gets as good a write up as any. But I just found it is possible to tile over old tiles. Which would save on the mess and expense if I had to pay someone to do it. Another option for cutting (labour) costs might be to remove the old tiles but re-tile with showerboard rather than fiddly small tiles.

phunt110

I painted my bathroom tiles as i wanted to give my bathroom a new lease of life as I couldn't afford a new bathroom. I used Ronseal brilliant white tile paint and it worked wonders.
I cleaned the tiles and grout first and let them dry and then applied one coat of paint. It worked a treat and didn't look stupid. It was quick and simple to do and would recommend to anyone.

wrightk

Have done this before. Probably wouldnt again to be honest. The finish was ok- scratched the tiles up to provide a key,used a mini gloss roller (spongey type) and gave a fairly decent finish. Its impossible to get away from the fact that they are tiles and you are painting on tiles which inevitably means scratches/paint coming off even though i made all the neccessary preparation/used tile paint. I'd imagine this would be even worse in a bathroom situation

Yolina

I've tiled over old tiles before with no issues - much better than painting IMHO (and less messing about than removing old tiles and then having to get the wall back to tileable condition.

Provided your existing tiles are sound and well stuck to the wall then it's fine, also look at using a different size tile to what you've currently got, or if not then line them up differently so that the new ones straddle across existing ones