Painting tiles

[Pineau]

Has anyone painted over tiles with the specialist tile paint? Did they look good or crap?

[Testificateman]

Don't do it. Crap isn't the right word to describe it.

[7to25]

Crap

[PurpleDaisies]

I agree, they look terrible and chip really easily.

[wowfudge]

Friends did it using spray paint and it worked a treat. You couldn't really tell. If there are brush marks or the grout is painted over, that's when it doesn't look right.

[Idefix]

Don't do it! It looked good for a while and then started to peel and chip off.

[coolpatterngirl]

Did it in our kitchen, it's really thick and sticky paint and shows every brush mark. When we painted more heavily it dried with drop marks. If I were to redo the kitchen I'd try normal paint but I presume you're thinking of a bathroom?

[Pineau]

Thanks everyone, it's a house we are moving into and the units are dark brown with brown/beige tiles so need to tart it up.
Here's some photos. As you see it's all rather brown.

[PurpleDaisies]

Lovely! Is it rented or yours? I'd live with it and save up to do it properly if it's yours. Our kitchen is similar but with random fruit tiles. They aren't even flat so we can't paint over them.

[Pineau]

Purple daisies it's ours, not rented. We are about to move in very soon.

[PurpleDaisies]

Very exciting. It looks like a decent size kitchen even if it is a bit brown.

[getmeachairwitharms]

I did it and it's come out ok. I used white. Loads and loads of prep- cleaning & degreasing. I then used a small gloss roller and did a couple or 3 of thin coats. There are no chips after over a year. It's an ok interim fix before we get a new kitchen.

[getmeachairwitharms]

Oh, I forgot I used a primer too!

[flownthecoopkiwi]

Paint the cabinets instead

[Earlgreywithmilk]

Yes, priming is key with this! And a good tile paint. I painted the tiles in our holiday home white a couple of years ago (they were olive green) - and they look so much better. Haven't chipped or anything either.

[Earlgreywithmilk]

Agree paint the cabinets too, get a quote for a specialist kitchen spraying company - they do this a lot in America. it would be a crime to get rid of a nice solid wood kitchen like that.

[llangennith]

Paint the kitchen units (lot of good preparation before actually painting) and maybe the tiles won't look too bad. But don't paint the tiles! If they still look crap it shouldn't be too expensive to get them tiled over.

[Ruhrpott]

I would knock the tiles off and re-tile. That's what I did. Tiling is fairly easy, just watch some you tube on how to do it and buy a decent tile cutter.

[Ruhrpott]

Though I've just seen you have tiled work surfaces too. Maybe a new work top would brighten it up a lot.

[engineersthumb]

I'd re-tile if I couldn't live with it but to be honest it looks OK if a bit dated. Painted cabinets always look at awful in my opinion, a bit "changing rooms"!

[Ruhrpott]

Here's a couple more photos before, after and during the retiling. Our kitchen is very similar to yours.

[PurpleDaisies]

Love the cat.

[Ruhrpott]

She likes joining in everything. I hated the kitchen before but can live with it now for another two or three years till we can afford to change the kitchen.

[Pineau]

I did think of repainting cabinets but then we are still left with the tiles, and there's a lot of them plus the work tops are tiled.
I think it's a case of chipping them off and retiling and new worktops?

[GinAndOnIt]

We painted our tiles. When we moved in a year ago, they were dark brown, and had been painted black and then red (?!?) so when I tried to strip the old paint it took forever. We couldn't (and still can't) afford to retile, so we really just needed a quick fix to lighten it up. It's worked really well, I'm really glad we did it. Granted, new tiles would look a lot better, but that wasn't an option. I'll see if I can find some photos.

[GinAndOnIt]

This is the before and after. The cupboards/worktop/oven etc are by no means perfect (or even nice!) but it makes it feel that bit brighter/fresher until we can afford to replace it all. It's a kitchen diner so we spend quite a lot of time in here.