Hello to all!
We have just purchased a "do-er-upper". We need to do an update on the bathroom – which has these olive green tiles on the wall. I know they sound awful, but they actually don't look TOO bad! They are a colour that is seen around these days, often teamed with purple/chocolate hues. The problem is they are a bit dark for the space. We could work around the colours, but having just seen the Jase and Flic photos, I'm thinking how great their tiles looked when painted.
My Questions: What is the process for painting over tiles? Is it difficult to achieve a finish that is hard to tell from actual tiles? How hard wearing are they once painted?
Our dilema is that we are as yet undecided as to whether to sell, or keep for the long term. The property is in Kingaroy, and a new coal mine has just been announced for the area. It is expected to bring approx 700 people to town (plus families) and as the town has a pop of approx 10,000 now, this is quite a significant influx of people. We have no worries about the medium term prospects for the town. The only drama with keeping the place is if we have painted the tiles…as tenants can be pretty rough! I don't particularly want to have to either re-do the job, or completely retile if the original paint job is a dud.
Any thoughts you have would be greatly appreciated…
Painting tiles is OK on walls but is a big no no in the shower recess even though they say its waterproof etc. It slowly just chips and peels away and looks bloody awful!
Sugar Soap à Rinse and dry àtile primer à paint.
Contrary to the experiences of others, we did a quick update of an entire bathroom in one of our rental properties with just tile paint – including the shower recess – thinking it would tide us over for a couple of months until we could afford to re-tile. Two years later the paint still looks as good as new! There's no peeling or flaking at all, or mould……which use to be a bit of a problem in some areas. I was pleasantly surprised.
I think if you follow the directions to a tee and make sure the surfaces are ultra clean before you start it's a cheap way to stretch out a bathroom makeover if you're short of funds.
I wouldn't hestitate to recommend tile paint for a quick – though not permanent – fix.
Dear FatKat,
If you want to achieve the highest rent I would suggest re-tiling the bathroom with a neutral set of tiles that will never date.
Its not as expensive as people think, I have recently retiled a large bathroom for under $500 including labour, materials and tiles. You dont have to buy the most expensive tiles, you can get seconds, or ones on special and you certainly can shop around for a cheap tiler or handyman.
However, if re-tiling is not going to achieve any more rent p/w then I would just leave it.
When renovating a rental you have to remind yourself that is a rental property and people generally wont pay more rent for better colour tiles and other improvements that may seem important to you personally.
Kind Regards,
Mark Leith
Property Advocate
Global Buyers Agent
http://www.buyersagent.com.auHi there Mark makes a good comment. The cost of tiling for my renos range around $25 to $35 per sqm (for the tiles) and around $20 per sqm for laying the tiles to finish. Work how many sqm you have( you can do this by measuring the length of the area and the width and multiply both measurements). Call some tilers in your area and give them the total sqm’s and they will give you a quote straight away, good luck!
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