Mom Transforms Her Bathroom By Dumping Black Paint On The Floor And Drawing Fake Tiles

So you’re stuck in this tricky impasse: you hate your bathroom floor tile, but you don’t have the money to replace those grungy tiles hailing from the mid-70’s. What do you do? Do you suck it up and try to cover the floor with as many mismatched rugs as possible? Or do you fork up the money and find yourself up to your ears in credit card debt? Neither, with this tricky bathroom makeover!

Susanna from the cheap decor blog, Livin’ the Life of Riley, has shown us the best way to get the modern, trendy bathroom floor you want with the small price tag you’ve been dreaming of.

We’ll start out with a tip you’ll be willing to take: peruse the internet. Check out Instagram, Pinterest, your favorite decor blogs and get some ideas for patterns and colors that you’d like to replicate in your bathroom. Twist your arm, right?

Once you’ve found the stencil idea you like, look for the actual stencil at the Hobby Lobby. If nothing is there, check out Cutting Edge Stencils to find the pattern of your dreams. Keep searching until you find the one! When you have, you can start the instructions below and get yourself the bathroom you’ve been imagining.

Here’s what you’ll need to get started.

Painted Bathroom Tiles

Tools

  • DecoArt’s Chalk Paint in Everlasting & Relic (sold at Hobby Lobby)
  • Minwax’s Polycrylic
  • Foam roller
  • Painter’s tape
  • Stencil
  • Water based sealer
  • Paint brushes

Instructions

  1. Clean your floor SEVERAL times. You want to make sure the surface is sparkling clean.
  2. Paint the grout lines before you paint the actual tiles.
  3. Use the same brush to paint a first coat on the tiles, making sure to cover everything evenly.
  4. Let the first coat dry for about an hour before you rolled a second coat of gray. Let this coat dry for 2 hours before you stencil.
  5. Tape the stencil to the floor (make sure you use painters tape so it doesn’t peel up your base color when you remove your stencil) and roll over it with the white paint. Continue this until your pattern in complete. Let this dry for 2-3 hours.
  6. Using a smaller brush, touch up on the stencils so it looks perfect. Make all the edges crisp and fill in any places where the paint is lighter than the rest of the design to give the floor a polished, professional look.
  7. Finally, seal in the paint with a water-based sealer. You’ll want to use about five coats of sealer and give each coat at least 2 hours in between to dry. This will take about 24 hours before it is complete.

Bonus Tip: Make sure you go for a water-based sealer. If you use an oil-based seal, it will yellow and stain the paint, which is going to ruin the effect you worked so hard to make!

What do you think of this tricky DIY renovation? Will you use this clever project to make over your ugly bathroom floor? Share your thoughts on this home improvement project.