Painted Bathroom Shower Tile

As part of the FrogTape Paintover Challenge, I painted my white shower tile to give it the look of zellige tiles and I LOVE IT! It’s lasted for years and is such an inexpensive alternative to removing your tile and installing new.

I used lots of trial and error on test tiles to find the best method that won’t scratch off. Here’s how to do it.

· Remove any old/ failing caulk from your tile and tub perimeter.

· Sand your tile with a 150 grit sandpaper. I used an orbital sander for this.

· Clean your tile with a quality degreasing cleaner. Let dry.

· Apply the green FrogTape around the perimeter of your shower tile and the tub area. Press to adhere well.

· Prime your tile with a high quality primer made for shiny surfaces.

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For paint, I used a high gloss interior/exterior enamel in Sherwin Williams Basalt Powder as well as one in Gracious Greige. (*Note: To make the rest of the colors I added white to those base colors to come up with 4 additional shades. This saved me a lot of money on paint but if I need to touch anything up it may be hard to match it again.)

You want to keep your shades light and not too different from each other to really achieve the zellige look. If your tiles end up with too much color contrast, you will lose that soft, pretty look.

· Use a roller made for smooth surfaces to apply your paint.

· As far as a pattern.. I just chose tiles at random to paint and kept stepping back to see where it needed more to kind of balance it out. When people install zellige tiles, the install and variation is random and subtle.

· Apply green FrogTape to the flat edge of a trowel and use that as a guide/ flat edge to paint the rest of your colors. Your roller can go right up to the edge and help you create a clean paint line.

· Switch out the trowel’s FrogTape between colors so you’ve got a fresh edge for each new color.

· Once you’ve painted all tiles, let it all dry for 24 hours.

· Top it off with 2 coats of a water-based clear matte polycrylic. This won’t change your paint colors but will give some protection to the paint.

Caulk along the edges and that’s it!! Zellige tile for way less money (but way more work hah). SO WORTH IT!!!

I clean mine with Soft Scrub or whatever cleaner I’m using on the tub. Just be sure to use a soft rag and nothing scratchy and you should be ok! It’s held up for years now and get asked all the time where I got my tile. ;)

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