Painting the bathtub

Our house has 2.5 bathrooms. Two of them, the master and the half bath, are being rebuilt from the inside out. The other, the upstairs bathroom, will retain one original feature: the bathtub. There was at least one problem with this feature: 1987.  That’s the year our house was built and it's when we think this fiberglass unit, with its deep almond hue, was installed. For us, it was a problem. Our solution? Paint the tub. PAINTING THE BATHTUB

Getting started: Our house had been vacant for several years before we bought it. What was left behind in it was grime and stains, which were made worse by the sawdust that had settled inside since the reno started.

Tips and tricks:

1.) A serious scrub down: This would be a dirty job, and the first phase of it was mine to tackle. Bring on the Ajax. I had to be careful to clean all corners of the club, remembering to tackle even the hard-to-see spots.

This job more time than I would like to talk about. After the first cleaning was done, we walked away and let the tub just sit for a few months. Not because we needed to for the project, but because this is real life. I had grad school work to tackle, my husband had to do his job, and we both had a new, really cute, really sweet, baby to feed and wipe and cuddle.

By the time we picked the job back up, the tub needed another, less intense, wipe down.

2) Sanding: I tackled that job by lightly rubbing the tub with a handheld electric sander. My husband followed it up by finishing out the hard-to-get contours of the tub with a hand-held strip of sandpaper.

3.) Protecting the tub’s plumbing fixtures: This was an essential step. We didn’t want to have to purchase new fixtures for the bathtub and the paint we were using is pretty unforgiving. The fix: We wrapped the chrome fixtures with painters tape, another job my husband tackled masterfully.

4.) The paint job: a phase of the project I was not there for. My husband tackled that too because he had done it before and we wanted the lines to be as smooth as possible.

Analysis:

The end product of this project is more than adequate for us, and I feel it was a good choice for our house. The bathtub paint ripples slightly, but it covers well and it’s durable. The painted tub we now use only started chipping about a year ago and the chips a few and stable (not expanding).

Because we painted the tub, we not only avoided the cost of buying a new one, but we avoided the hassle of demoing the tub and hauling its replacement up stairs. A win!

Important health concerns:

First: Sanding fiberglass creates a very fine dust that probably shouldn’t be inhaled and probably should be whipped up right after the job is done. This job is also noisy. To protect my lungs I wore a respirator, which we already owned, but can be purchased for just a few bucks. To protect my eyes, I wore sunglasses, which I briefly considered enclosing with duct tape. (Our safety glasses were MIA). To protect my ears, I used foam earplugs. We also used a box fan to draw the dust out of the bathroom as we worked.

Second: I was surprised by how strong the paint smelled, which was a concern not because of inconvenience or discomfort, but because we feared the fumes in it might be dangerous. The scent is significantly stronger than household paint, and though it began dissipating after it dried, the smell filled the  house for about a week after the job. To avoid the fumes, my husband wore a mask. We also kept the baby out of the house until the smell was completely gone.

COST: The "Tub and Tile" Rust-oleum we picked up to tackle this job cost $29.99 at Walmart as of the time of this post.

Basic painting tips and tricks

Tips and tricks

In a past life, my husband gained several years of professional experience painting cabinets. Below is the advice he gave me when I began painting furniture to go in our home.

On choosing a brush: "For most applications you want to use a two inch or a two-and-a-half inch angled brush, a synthetic that's designed for water based paints."

On holding the brush: "You need to hold the brush on the base with the handle of the base sitting between your thumb and your index finger. Then you hold the base of your brush with your fingers. You never, ever hold the brush by the handle with your whole hand when painting."

On loading the brush: "Don't put too much paint on the brush, but reload it frequently. The purpose of the brush is to soak up the paint, and the paint should naturally flow out of the brush onto the surface that's being painted. You should never use your brush to smear paint."

On strokes for flat surfaces: "You need to maintain a wet edge on whatever you're painting. Paint in sections so that the edge of the area you're painting stays wet. You usually start the stroke with the brush being held down."

A little extra: You should always keep a container of water nearby to drop your paint brush in.

Note: This is one of several pieces I painted when we moved into our new house. For it, I used Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Parris Blue. It's a beautiful couler, but hard to find in rural Alabama and at $37 a quart, it's a fancier fix.

Also, there are a lot of different techniques to employ when doing each of these tasks, many of which are explored at Annie Sloan's website. I'm discussing the techniques that worked for us, but I recommend taking a look at these Chalk Paint-specific ideas too. 

Cost:

Second-hand chest of drawers: $125

Annie Sloan Parris Blue divided by about half: $18. 

Total: $145

$17 Laundry room light fixture

I want to share how we turned a gifted basket into a $17 light fixture.

This was quite an accomplishment, for two reasons: The first is it’s tough to find a decent light fixture for less than $100, and we saved about 80 percent of that cost on this project. The second is that it feels appropriate for the space.

About one year ago my mom gave us a small set of stacking baskets, probably from Home Goods or the Dollar Store. I really loved the look of these little baskets, and I looked at them often as we used it to store our new baby’s little socks. And  then one day I looked at them and thought, light fixture! A few months later, this project was born.

Tips and tricks:

1.) Selecting a light kit: We bought a light kit from Lowes. A light kit is basically just the guts of a light. It allows you to turn an object into a lamp or a light fixture, but you want to be sure to get the right one for your job. Some are for pendant lights, like ours. Others are better suited for lamps or other varieties of fixtures. It’s not tough to figure out what you need, so don’t be stopped by the foreign nature of the words “light kit.” Someone at your local hardware store should be able to help. Here’swhat we used. 

2.) Prepping the “shade”: Lucky for us this basket came with a built-in shade, the liner inside the basket. A lot of people do similar lighting projects without them, but I prefer the diffusion that the shade offers. The first step after bringing the light kit home was cutting the shade to fit around it. Starting with an cross-cut in the center of the base of the lining, we just cut a circle out to get that part of the job done. Note: The liner is not a lampshade and we have no way of knowing if it is heat safe. We used a bulb that does not get hot and were still careful to ensure it did not rest to close to the liner. Always beware of fire hazards, and make the safest decision about what will work in your home. This method may not! 

3.) Painting parts: You might not have noticed, but light fixtures usually have a small little plate that hugs the ceiling and disguises the area where the chords actually tie in to the home’s electrical wires. We spray panted the plate that was previously in the space and reused it. It was an easy way to save money. We also “customized” the light kit by spray painting it the same shade of grey we used on the ceiling plate. It wasn’t a necessary step, but it helped give the light fixture a more cohesive look.

4.) Modifying the basket: As we progressed, we realized that the metal base of the basket were too close together for our light kit to fit through them. To work around this hiccup, we simply used wire cutters to trim the base of the basket. 

6.) Pulling it all together: The final step involved attaching the wires in the light kit to the ceiling wires and fitting the opening in the basket-turned-shade around the light kit.

Click here to go directly to a Goolge page with light fixture installation instruction and here for safety tips.

Analysis

I am happy with this simple project. The price is right and the look is better than I anticipated.

Cost: $17 light kit

whitewashed

Our 1987-built living room needed very little work, but the yellow brick on the fireplace had to have a facelift.

I tackled this project and got the job done in under two hours, but first I had to choose a method for the transformation. I considered three. One was painting the brick. Another was an authentic whitewash. The third was using paint and water to achieve a whitewash look.

I decided I wasn’t ready to commit to the complete cover paint would give us. An authentic whitewash  was a touch too involved for me. But the paint and water approach would be just right.

Tips and tricks:

1.) Paint: Most people use paint, but we mixed water with leftover flat white construction drywall primer, which turned out to be a good choice for us. Here’s why: 1.) We already owned it. 2.) It was a little bit gray, which turned out to be a nice cover for our yellow-ish brick. 3.) It was provided the right amount of cover.

2.) Mixing: The ratio of water-to-primer we used was about 50/50, but anyone doing this project would want to chose a ratio that will provide the degree of cover desired for a given project.

3.) Taping: We taped the walls surrounding the fireplace to prevent striking them with whitewash. We also taped a black garbage bag over the fireplace opening for the same reason. 

4.) Painting: We tested the whitewash in an inconspicuous spot, simply painting the brick with a paint brush. We were satisfied with that so we continued painting until the project was rapped up. During this phase you want to be sure to cover any the depressed spots in the brick and the mortar between them. To consider: Different surfaces absorb paint different ways. For example, the mortar on our project soaked the whitewash up more than the bricks. If the surface your painting on is porous, like the mortar, you might need to apply more layers. If your surface is less permeable, like our brick, you might want to blot to make sure it’s as transparent as you’d like for it to be.

5.) Blotting: Following the advice from another blog, which stated that we should have a dry cloth handy to chase drips and blot as we painted, we kept a cloth handy. As it turned out, we didn’t need that cloth for blotting. We decided we liked the amount of coverage the mixture provided without blotting, but another person might have preferred the blotting. The cloth came in handy, however, for for catching runs, which there were a lot of because the paint is expectedly very watery. So keep that clothe on hand, y’all. You also want to be really careful about splashes. Even the slight stroke of the brush can cause paint that thin to spray. If your flooring or walls are in the line of fire, they will get sprayed. Keep that in mind and use drop clothes as needed. 

6.) Finishing: After I finished the paint job I asked my husband to check for any spots I missed, and he touched the job up. After that step was wrapped up, we let the paint dry and pulled the paint tape up. 

Analysis:

There are other methods that might provide a similar, but slightly more enviable look. Formally whitewashed surfaces appear authentic because the process actually produces a hardened surface on top of the brick. However, I’m really pleased with the whitewash effect for our project.

The amount of time and money we spent on it made this project easy to tackle.

I was really satisfied with the finish project. I think it gave the fireplace the face lift and the authentically aged look I was going for.

Cost: A fraction of the primer paint used on our walls: Probably less than $5.