How To Paint Shower Tile (Does It Work)

This post is all about painting bathroom shower tile. How Rustoleum Tub and Tile paint is holding up? Do painted tiles last? Should you use it to paint your shower tile?

A year ago we painted the tile in our master bath. They were retro pink and in need of an update. We painted the tiles but left the shower tile alone.

This fall we decided to paint the shower tile. Our windows were painted shut when we bought our home. This made painting with Rustoleum unnecessarily hard. There was no good way of venting the fumes. Well, Hubby since took the many hours needed to open the windows. That helped a lot with the fumes. It was still bad, but less so.

The shower floor was in bad shape, so much so that I couldn’t wait to cover it. We had a leaky shower head and to compound the issue there is no fan/vent in the bathroom. This instigated mold and necessitated routine cleanings.

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Supplies

Rustoleum Tub and Tile Paint
Sandpaper
Foam roller
3M respirator
Painter’s tape
Cleaning products/supplies
gloves (optional)
Rags

Direction

The tiles were thoroughly scrubbed, sanded (80-grit), rinsed, and wiped down. This took an exceedingly long time due to the silicone layer a contractor sprayed onto the floor to mitigate a leak into the basement. You can’t paint something if it is filmy or dirty.

The house was ill-maintained when we bought it and now, almost 10 years later, we’re still catching up on fixing it up.

Tape the fixtures using painter’s tape.

Mix the part 1 and 2 paint included in the kit. The paint is as runny as condensed milk so hubby had to work quickly to spread it thinly and evenly, one coat at a time.

It takes multiple coats. He painted half the shower to test the experiment and see how well it’d hold up. “Small bets,” he likes to say.

Painted retro tile — The shower afterward.

It looked better and brighter right away, but did it hold up?

Yes and no. The walls held up, but not the floor. It began to flake, but that turned out to be our fault. Rustoleum does not bond to every kind of tile. Read the directions. Our floor was some kind of stone, not ceramic.

Painted tile chipping — Rustoleum is meant to bond only with certain materials, namely ceramic.

I recommend Rustoleum for walls, but not most floors. I didn’t anticipate the bonding issue with certain materials. I was overly optimistic it would whitewash away the unsightly look. Unfortunately, it did but only for a short while. Then we got a new issue.

The tile outside the shower remains in perfect shape. No peeling. So overall, the lesson learned is to use it only on the ceramic tile as per the directions.

We will install a ventilation/exhaust fan in the bathroom.