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Painting tile?
I've decided to repaint my kitchen cabinets, which are very boring and off-white. Next to my white appliances, they look dingy and dirty. I thought a nice sage green would spice things up and blend well with the dining and living room color schemes. Only proble, the tile backsplash in the kitchen is pale blue and beige.Ugh! I hav heard I can paint the tile, but I want it to look nice, not just...painted. What kind of paint does one use for this? Will it look shiny and tile-like? What color(s) would work well with sage cabinets, white appliances, and a golden oak laminate floor? Oh, and the walls are pale yellow. Should I repaint those, too? Bring on the ideas, please!
[Update: If you're looking for instructions on how to paint tile, we now have them.--Lynn]
Comments
Find a color that works with what you have
My living room is a pale shell pink/beige (depending on the light), my living room is sky blue and the archway between them is a sage green that transitions between them perfectly. You should be able to find a sage green that works with your tile and wall colors. Don't make work for yourself!
Lynn Siprelle, Editor
Tile
you could do a little one stroke type painting on your tiles and really get creative or be very simple too..it is uber easy to do even if you really are art handicapped like me.Its also pretty cheap and everything you need can be purchased at walmart if you shop thier or similar places too im sure.
I've painted tile Tiare
I've painted two shower stalls that get water on a regular basis and they've held up well. The trick to painting tile is the products you use, and the prep. You have to clean the tile well with something like STP(your paint store will have what you need to wash it with). It needs to be scuffed up with a sanding(no you don't have to take the shiny surface off the old tile, just scuff it). You *have* to prime it with a high adhesion primer(your paint store will have it).
You can then paint it with whatever you want for a finish. You can buy "glass finish" paint if you want it to be real shiny.
I was really pleased with the way mine turned out. You will be painting over any grout when you paint the tile, but it is a cost effective way to change the look of the tile. I did not mind the look of the grout painted over at all, in fact I think I like it better.
Color?
I say scrap the sage green and go with reds, oranges and muted yellows and golds. YIPPEEEE!!!! Then just toss in a little green here and there for interest.
It's not as time consuming as it sounds to get those tiles painted. The thing that takes the most time probably is letting the primer cure up for 24 or 48 hours before you paint. Ours took 24 hours, but you may be able to get primers that will cure more quickly. Ours was also easy to cleanup with water, which is always nice.
rub ons
I used rub ons in my other house. I got them at the craft store. You can use them on tile,,,its very simular to tatouche[sp]. HSN shows this on their shows,,,use thier web site to order. You just transfer them to the tile by rubbing on the paper backing. they last for years..easy and pretty..and removeable
Creepy!
I just read this thread and Lynn's comments on colour, then ambled on over to BHG, and found that they have a new feature - colour-a-room! You can actually try different colours together and see what works. I haven't tried it yet, but it could solve some of your worries about which colours work together and which don't.
I have to say though Lynn... some people really can't *see* the colours in the same way. For example, I can easily spot whether a green is more bluey or yellow than another, or whether it's slightly greyish, but I know lots of people who'd just see green. They might know a name for the green even, but they wouldn't be able to see the colours in it and work out from there whether it would go with another colour. Somehow or another our perceptions of colour differ - no matter how hard my mother looks at a colour she can't be sure of it in the same way as I can, and she'll always check with me. This is not to say I'm a naturally artistic person, it just happens to be a gift I have, and I know that not everyone does. I guess paint charts could help too.
uh, the site, in case you aren't familiar with it (whyever not - it's brilliant! Content, not community... I have no idea what the community is like!)...
www.bhg.com
the tool I mentioned is being featured right at the moment, or you might have to go hunting in the tools section for it if the features have changed.
Kerri.
Instructions on painting laminate countertop
You can find instructions on painting laminate countertop here now. I don't see why this couldn't be used to paint tile as well, though I'd try a spot test if at all possible.
Lynn Siprelle, Editor
floor tile paint
My wife absolutely hates the color of our white floor tile.
The tile is in the foyer, bathrooms, kitchen and utility room.
Is there a product that can be used to paint over it that works?
You can, but I don't think you want to
Not for such large areas at least. You have to degrease the entire area then dull it--get rid of the sealant on the tile surface so the paint will bond to it, and then make sure it's completely dry. See here. Then you get to paint it. It's recommended by several people on DIY websites that you go to a paint store for the paint, not the home improvement stores.
Anhata
www.familynaturally.com
Your Family's General Store, Naturally
Painting Tile floors??
I have about 2,000 sq ft of textured tile floors with splotches of brown, beige, and mauve. It's the mauve that I dislike. It would work for me if darker brown hues dominated.
Is there a "splotching" paint method that will tone down the mauve color? It would be great if there were professionals that do this! I love the staining effect that is done on cement floors. Can this method be used on tile floors?
Arlene
Not a bad thought
I wouldn't mind if I could find a green that can link the pale blue, beige, yellow, and green somehow. I am so non-artistic, that I am afraid to be daring with colors. Just painting my cabinets green will be a big step!
Thank you, Hope
It sounds a little time-consuming, but not too difficult, which is a good thing. I am still seriously considering painting the tiles, and your post gives me a glimmer of hope (No pun intended!). I just hate the colors in my kitchen. They are too pastel-y for my tastes.
What About Stain?
Hi there.
We have faux hardwood porcelain tile that I would like to remove, but to save money, I thought I might be able to stain it a dark brown. Since it is textured, would I have to do anything differently?
Thank you so much!
look at it this way
Blue + yellow = green! There's gotta be a green that will work. I would also bring some small accents of red into the room, just a tiny bit.
Lynn Siprelle, Editor
Red? AAack!
Now you're overwhelming me, Lynn! Red? That is too daring for my skills, or lack thereof. Have you been watching Trading Spaces? They are so talented at putting unlikely color schemes together and making it work. I's have to practice somewhere obscure first, like my laundry room!
Be confident!
I'm not talking about PAINTING anything red!
I'm taking about red accents. For instance, in my kitchen the walls are very pale yellow, the cabinets/trim are a creamy white, and my curtains (which my mom found for me) are white with a wide natural linen-y band; on the band are big red embroidered ladybugs spaced all in a row. I also have a bright red KitchenAid mixer.
So once you've got your kitchen painted the way you like, just look around for a couple of small things in red--to test my theory you can even find a pretty clear glass bottle and fill it with water colored red with food coloring. (That's a good way to test all kinds of accent colors.)
As for Trading Spaces, I prefer the original English version, Changing Rooms, which isn't as outrageous; they actually aim for useful spaces. True, they come up with some doozies sometimes, but quite often they come up with truly lovely rooms. I've learned the most from basic color theory, really, and a book called Color: Natural Palettes for Painted Rooms by Donald Kaufman and Taffy Dahl. Expensive, gorgeous book, but boy did I learn a lot, and I've applied it to all sorts of crafts, not just home decor.
Do a web search on "color theory" and you can learn a great deal on your own. It's not hard, and it's very fun to play with. Just ignore the $10 words.
Lynn Siprelle, Editor
Painting floors
I've painted over a number of floors, including high traffic kitchen floors, and they've lasted quite a few years. I initially tried it as a "band-aid" to last just until we could redo the room correctly with new tile or bamboo, or whatever we chose, but it's held up well, 7 years so far, since old houses have a habit of demanding that you deal with the roof, or the plumbing, electricity, etc. before you get to the cosmetics.
As others have written before in the replies to tile painting, prep is extremely important. Getting rid of grease with TSP should be the first step. I've found a wonderful primer, water-based, called the Gripper, and it sure does. It's hard to was off your skin! Unfortunately, in the Chicago area, I've only found it at Home Depot. I'm sure you could do a search and find it elsewhere.
When we bought this lovely old craftsman, someone had decided to tile the kitchen floor with something the Jetsons would have chosen, so to make it more livable, and not show dirt, as we would be focusing our remodeling energies elsewhere in the house, I decided to paint it to look like your basic brown ceramic tile. I started with a Benjamin Moore floor paint in dark brown (I used all water based products ) . When this was thoroughly dry...I think I gave it two days, I took inch wide masking tape and cut through it with an Exacto knife, approximately in half and purposely not evenly. I did this in layers, not all at once. The purpose of this was to tape off the 12" squares that would be my tiles. Except for being on my knees, this was fairly easy as I used the lines from the tiles that were there. I made sure that the corners were slightly rounded, as ceramic tiles are. Now when I applied the lighter caramel colors over the dark brown, I would have a dark brown grout line.
I'll admit that this may be a little more labor intensive than many of you are planning, but it came out so well, no visitors have suspected that it's painted. I made up three shades of caramel, and ragged them on, in what is called a broken color or mottling technique. I did this tile by tile, so it would look natural and not manufactured. Remove the tape. I sealed the whole thing with Diamond finish clear acrylic sealer.
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