Do you have ugly tile in the bathroom? You can paint it! I gave the tile in Clara’s bathroom a makeover for about $60 (including brushes). This has been by far the most asked tutorial I’ve gotten on Instagram and I finally finished it!

This painted ombré tile wall didn’t require many tools or materials, just patience and a steady hand. You can do this! I’ll show you each and every step of the way.

You can also see me doing it step by step on Instagram, it’s saved in my highlights under “Kids baths.”

In dreamland I would like to renovate all three of our bathrooms, but that’s not even on the radar with our budget! So I have a plan to give them each a makeover with only a couple hundred dollars each, starting with Clara’s.

Because I didn’t love the existing tile and I hope to redo the bathrooms in the coming years, I decided to go bold! Bright coral and ombré pink bold! That way if I completely botched it, it wouldn’t be too bad.

In addition to painting the tile, we also changed out the sink and tub faucets, drains and added some moulding on the wall. The moulding was SUPER simple: The Easiest Wainscoting!

The only thing I have left to do in here is frame the mirror.

The cacti mural on the wall is actually a tapestry. I used small nails to nail it up. I already had this and couldn’t believe it fit the space almost perfectly. It even has one pop of coral in it that ties in the tile!

The 3-tiered shelf is from Amazon. I’m not sure I recommend it, haha! It’s super cute, but difficult to put together and I didn’t even do it right. I included the link in case you’re like me and aesthetics win.

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OMBRÉ WALL

So let’s get to it! Here’s how I painted the wall:

Materials

• Utility knife
• Small foam roller
• Wooster angled paint brush
• 1 quart bonding primer
• 1 quart white satin enamel oil-based interior/exterior paint
• 1 quart Benjamin Moore Coral Gables satin enamel oil-based interior/exterior paint

I can’t find the exact link on the Home Depot website for the oil-based enamel, but they have it in the stores. I went with a satin finish.

I seriously lucked out with the color Coral Gables! I looked up all the rooms labeled Coral Gables online and examined the color swatch to see what its color variants would be. When white is added it transitions from a fun bubble gum to a beautiful ballet pink!

Instructions

Preparation

1. Remove old caulking with utility knife. Score the top and bottom of the caulk to loosen it.
2. Remove faucet and know if you are replacing them. Otherwise, you can paint around it. I painted around the shower head.
3. Wash tile.
4. Sand tile if it is a slick surface. (I did not sand because the tile is stone and rough.)
5. Roll on two thin coats of bonding primer with the foam roller.
6. Allow to cure. The directions say to wait 7 days.

Applying enamel

IT’S IMPORTANT TO READ THIS PART:

Oil-based paint is sticky, messy to clean up and takes much longer to cure than water-based paint. Handle it with care and if you’re new to painting, be sure to cover your tub well with plastic.

The oil paint’s odor is very strong. Open windows, turn on the exhaust fan. You can wear a mask. Keep the door shut when you are done.

Oil enamel is more difficult to work with, BUT because it dries slowly, you have time to correct mistakes. Also, after it has time to cure it becomes very hard and is more chip-resistant. I did not make any attempt to save my brushes as they’re nearly impossible to clean.

I did not use tape. I got asked a lot on Instagram how I did this without tape! I used the angled brush and carefully and slowly followed the top of the grout line. It’s not as difficult as you think!

1. Paint the bottom row Coral Gables, straight from the can.
2. Mix 1 cup of coral and 1/4 cup of white in a cup or tray.
3. Paint the second row, using the top of the grout as your guide.
4. Wipe off as much of the paint on the brush as you can.
5. Add another 1/4 cup of white and paint the third row.
6. By the fourth row I started adding a little bit more than the 1/4 cup. It was probably more like a half a cup. You can eyeball it. I wanted to make sure the top was pale pink.
7. There is a boarder on this tile, so I decided to paint it with the white enamel.
8. Let this cure for a long time! I let it cure for over a week before Clara used the shower. Oil paint takes a long time to dry, but it’s worth it!
9. After you’re certain the paint has hardened, recaulk the tub and install new hardware.

TIP: Drips are hard because, unless you save a little paint from each row (which I didn’t!), you won’t have the same color to cover them up. I got lucky and this drip was on the bottom row, so I just used straight Coral Gable. The other couple drips I got, I carefully wiped them off and blended them in. You can’t see them at all.

Don’t put too much paint on your brush and pay attention to how the paint is puddling at the top when you make straight lines and you shouldn’t have much dripping.

I took the faucet and drain out off the wall because we wanted to replace them. This is a fairly simple procedure IF you have a newer plumbing system. If you don’t (like us) I would call someone. Moen doesn’t make parts to fit the this setup anymore. We learned that after six trips to Home Depot!

We found a shower knob made by another company that will fit older Moen models. It’s not fantastic quality, but it’s fine.

If you are not replacing them, just paint around them! You can use an artist’s brush if your Wooster is too bulky.

Also hard water corroded the drain so much that it broke when I tried to take it out. So we had to buy a special tool to get it out! It was worth it in the end though!

Changing the sinks out was doable, but more difficult than we thought because the drain was completely rusted through. Lots of YouTubing and Marcello figured it out. You could do this one by yourself. Despite having a DIY blog, we are super not handy! Haha!

I found inexpensive faucets. I kind of wish I would have found some that are smudge resistant instead, but no complaining. This looks one million percent better!

Will it hold up?

I did this two months ago and it’s perfect so far. I had quite a few messages on Instagram from people who used oil enamel in their showers and say it’s still perfect. I painted the backsplash in the kitchen at our last house and it was perfect for at least two years (my most popular post EVER). I’ve been very impressed with oil-enamel.

I’ve also tried to scratch it with my fingernail to see how durable it is and nothing comes off. I’ll be sure to post an update in a year or so!

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A post shared by Kate | Home & DIY Blog (@housemixblog) on Aug 31, 2019 at 11:58am PDT

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