Hi Moms!
We are moving and in getting the house ready to sell, I realized the kids' bathtub needs some help. They have a huge bathroom that is really cute but their tub just doesn't look great. I would rather not replace it because it is in fine shape but I would like it to look new and shiny. It has a few stains that just won't come off. Can anyone recommend solutions for me? I know there are places that can paint tubs and make them look new but I don't knw anyone who has done that and I have no idea what that type of thing costs. I also don't know if there are other solutions out there.
Any help would be very appreciated.
Thank you!
well to get the stains out, you could try a Mr Clean Magic Eraser, and add some toilet bowl cleaner to the spot. That did the trick for us when we needed to get some stains out. But wear rubber gloves!!!
We did the do-it-yourself tub resurfacing about 8 years ago and a friend of our bought a house with a resurfaced tub. YUCK! And yes, we followed all the steps to the letter.
It worked OK for the first year or two, but it did eventually stain terribly and then the peeling began. I thought the tub looked bad before we resurfaced. In time I wished I had the old tub back. Dull and slightly chipped looked so much better!
AND our house smelled like one of those nail salons for a week. If we had not done this at a time of year when we could leave the windows open, I would have had to get a hotel room for a week. Even with the windows open, the fumes caused headaches.
I've never seen a professionally resurfaced tub, so I really do not know if they are any better, but I would want to see one that had been resurfaced for at least 5 years before I would even consider having that done.
You might consider shopping online for the tub you want. You may be able to find a decent one used. If you do choose to replace the tub, do yourself a favor and make sure to insulate it!
Our rental's tub was refinished.
It's a pretty arduous process, but only takes a day and you have to not use the bathroom for several days. It looks great (was done a few months ago), but I can already tell it will peel over time around the edges. Also, you cannot use very hot water and no heavy cleaning agents or abrasives on it or the finish will yellow and mar, so that information will need to be disclosed to the new owners of the home.
Exactly what Sarriemom said, it's a great temporary fix.
I've done it with two tubs at two different houses. One company did a better job than the other, but they both looked great. It's best if your current tub is white and you just have it redone in white. The fumes are bad though, you might want to leave the house for the day or do it when the weather is nice enough to leave windows open.
DO NOT do it yourself. We are living in a home where the owners got some sort of bathtub paint, and it is CRAPPY!!! The paint peels, chips, looks awful, and stains. It looked nice for about 3 months.
New bathtubs really are not that spendy. You can find them on sale at Home Depot for less than $200...it may be worth it.
We had that done to our tub when we were getting ready to sell and it looked fantastic! It cost us a couple hundred dollars, and we couldn't use the tub for a few days. They recommended not using anything with suction cups on the tub (so no bathmat), but they did have a surfacing option for the bottom that provided some traction so the bathmat wasn't needed. They also said to avoid leaving things like shampoo bottles, toys, etc sitting on the edge of the tub with water underneath them for days, but if you're selling your house that's not likely to be an issue anyway. I think we also had to be a little careful about what kind of cleanser we used afterward, it couldn't be abrasive. Finally, I think it's kind of a "make the tub last a few more years" option rather than a permanent fix, but it was totally worth it for us. Good luck with everything!
if it's a porcelain tub.. clr works great and gets just about anything off. don't use it on the plastic type though or it will ruin the shiny finish or what you have left of it. Tilex for mold/mildew works better than the others too.
I have to disagree with SammyJo sorrry.
We updated our bathroom this past May. We have a really big, deep, old steel bathtub and we didn't want to downgrade to something half its size. I bought a bathtub painting kit at Lowes, it was only $30, I needed to buy 2 of them for the size of our tub. They have 2 kinds, one with a paint roller, and one with a spray paint. ( which I used) As long as you follow all of the prep steps before you spray the tub, it works great. It has been almost 8 months and it still looks like we just did it and there has been no chipping, peeling, or staining. After I did it we had to wait 7 days to use it though. It worked for us.
