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When we purchased our home, we were met with a move-in ready, but slightly out of date home. We were thrilled because this was our first home and we knew we wanted to add a personal touch, but we had a lot to learn.

The bathroom was one room that probably could have been left alone, but I really couldn’t stand the yellow sink and yellow tub. The previous owners had painted the tile a light blue and medium blue, but it was horrible with the yellow.

Here’s the thing, there was A LOT of tile in the bathroom and though we had some time to do updates before moving in, I was really not about to tackle tearing down tile. For one, it seemed like a lot of work to remove and then there’s refinishing the drywall underneath or adding new tile.

So I knew I had to look into other options and I came upon Rust-Oleum Tub and Tile Refinishing Kit. What??!?!?! This exists? That’s what I thought, haha!

So after watching a lot of videos and researching about it, I decided this would be worth trying. If for some reason it looked awful or didn’t work, we would have to just grin and bear it and remove the tile.

This is what the bathroom looked like when we bought the house.

There were quite a few things we didn’t like about this bathroom, including the fact that the mirror was too low and my very tall husband couldn’t see himself in it while standing at the vanity.

And I probably could have lived with that lighting, especially since lighting on the sides is best for makeup application 😉 But they were pretty outdated so I wasn’t sad to see them go.

What did we do to update it?

First, we had to strip the old paint, and I’m not talking about the walls. I’m talking about the tile. Yep, we had to strip the old paint off the tile. This was by far the worst part of this experience. It was a learning experience that oil-based paint is pretty hard to remove.

Just to share what that was like, here are some photos:

We used paint stripper, mineral oil, and lots of muscles scraping using paint scrapers.

After painstakingly scraping off the old blue paint, we finished off by applying mineral oil and anything else we could to make sure the tiles were free and clear of old paint. This even included scouring pads to rough up the tile (as recommended before applying the epoxy paint) and remove any leftover paint.

Guess what we found under all that paint, GREEN! Emerald green and gross yellow tile to match the gross yellow tub and sink haha. (I mean no offense if you like the green and yellow, but it wasn’t for us)

In addition to preparing the tile, we also removed the mirror from the wall. This particular mirror was the original builder mirror, which was on the wall with construction adhesive.

This was a bit of a challenge, especially since we wanted to maintain the integrity of the drywall and we tried to save the mirror.

We ultimately decided it wasn’t overly expensive to find a new mirror and we would do whatever it took to remove the old one.

Because of this, we wore some safety gear and put a tarp over the vanity, taped over the mirror to try and reduce the shards as much as possible, and used a heat gun to melt the adhesive the best we could. With this method we were able to very carefully get the mirror completely off the wall.

Begin the Transformation

So in order to start transforming the bathroom, we began by painting the tiles again, but this time we used epoxy tub and tile paint .

This was another learning curve for us; most things we do it’s the first time -we just try it out and hope it works!

For this process, we got foam rollers and paint trays. To use the kit, you mix the two parts and then just like any paint, paint it on the tile.

It took us about 3 coats before the epoxy paint really looked like white tile. It is also tricky to work with because it dries quickly and the foam rollers can fall apart if they aren’t high quality. You don’t want foam to come off the roller and get stuck in the paint.

Disclaimer: If you work with this paint, you absolutely need to vent the space and wear masks because this paint has a very strong smell.

The above photo shows how the first coat still shows the color through it, the second coat is a little better, and the final coat really makes it look like the tile was white all along.

Here’s a couple more photos of the transformation to white tile and a white tub and sink. I also changed the color on the walls to a dark blue/green color since there was so much white.

You’ll notice the lighting was also changed in order to modernize the bathroom a little further and those lights are beautiful and bright. Here is a light very similar to the ones we used. Also, I added a trim around the mirror to elevate that as well.

To add to the bathroom, we also built shelves out of 2x4s that we stained with gray stain and put above the toilet. We added some baskets for more storage, silk flowers for glamour, and a fun little sign for some whimsy.

Another little change, that you might have noticed, was the metal rotating toothbrush holder that was above the sink. We didn’t have a need to put our toothbrushes in the wall, so we removed the rotating door and painted that built in part with the epoxy to blend it in. Now I put a little silk plant in there to give it a purpose. 🙂

After about a year and a half of living with this updated bathroom, we updated it a little more! You can check out our transformation of the built in vanity by reading this blog post on how we knocked out the old vanity to put in a new one.

After completing that additional transformation, and adding some art on the walls, here’s a more finished look to our self updated bathroom.

Just to provide a further update – after almost 2 years of living with the epoxied tile, I can honestly say it was worth all the work and effort it took to transform it. The epoxy has held up really well and if we ever need to touch it up, we can use this touch up kit.

I have to say, I really love the way this bathroom came out. Also, even though it did take some muscle power on our end, I still believe we saved energy and money. Replacing tile, a tub, and a sink/vanity at the time of first moving in, would have been much more expensive then this project ended up being. I also love the tile now that it’s white and it better protects the walls in the shower and overall bathroom.

We did have an advantage of being able to tackle this project before officially moving in, and if you have that opportunity, definitely take it! This project would have been very difficult to manage if we were living in the house, especially with the pets. You don’t want to get ANYTHING in the air sticking to the epoxy while it dries.

Best of luck on your DIY adventures!