In my bottom-of-the-food-chain accomodations, I recently used the shower enclosure to strip the paint off a kitchen shelf. Imagine my surprise whan I discovered that the citrus stripper also removed the color covering (paint) from the ceramic wall tiles.
What lies under the colored surface looks like gray glass.
Is there any paint recommended for ceramic tile? Or, am I better off stripping all the paint, and getting used to a gray shower?
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No help with your question, but I was wondering if those tiles are glazed. Could they have been glazed and then painted? That's the only thing that, in my mind, could explain what happened.
Without a doubt .... the exposed surface is quite glassy.
For that matter, so is the colored surface. All I can fugure is that cheap tiles are fired at a high temperature, colorde as needed, then fired again at a lower temperature.
The colored surface is quite glassy and hard; it doesn not scuff with an SOS pad, and has resisted the strongest cleaners quite well. It just doesn't resist paint stripper.
All the painted tile I've seen the grout was painted too. Did the remover remove paint on the grout? I think that I could live with grey tile.
No, the grout was not painted
I believe the tile color was factory applied. It seems that cheaper tiles are not colored all the way through, but have an enamel, or colored glaze, over the face.
Check out XIM primer. You can then paint it with whatever you want. Works well on ceramic tiles in the 3 times I've had it done for customers wanting to change hideous color.
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I've experimented with various primers on ceramic tile and I haven't found anything that works satisfactorily for tiles that see regular cleaning such as shower tiles. So I would suggest the OP do some experimenting himself before committing to painting the shower tile.
I had a suspicion that was the case .....
I'll probably just tolerate the mess, until it's time for a complete remodel. This same tile continues out the shower, and behind the sink .... where the backerboard is failing. So, one wall is going to see some major work eventually.
If it becomes a more "critical" issue, I'll just strip all the tiles, and pretend they were always gray. Of course, with my luck, not all the tiles are the same underneath!
About the closest I can come to an answer is this... I painted ceramic tiles using an HVLP and a Muralo paint that was called Ceramic Coat or something like that. This was in a kitchen so while it didnt get the same degree of cleaning that a shower wouldd be likely to, it looked fabulous for 4 years until they moved at least...PaulB
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You could give yourself a remodel - strip them in a pattern to give visual interest!
Rebuilding my home in Cypress, CA
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