Can you paint tiles?[ Up-cycle with B&Q Vaslper Paint review.]

The year 2020 will be remembered for so many obvious reasons. One being the amount of DIY that took place in many homes throughout the country. With a blog titled Thehomeslogg, it would leave no surprise our home was one of them. Yes! As a DIY enthusiast, I picked up my tools and slogged lockdown away.

With skills as limited as the shops that were open, up-cycling our utility/bathroom room was one of the many fun transformations we did. A room that was in perfectly fine working order. However, it didn’t really suit our personal Interior tastebuds.

Can you paint tiles?

Yes, you most definitely can! Winner! Turns out there is paint on the market specifically for painting tiles. To my joy I could keep the bathroom tiles and paint them as there was nothing wrong with the porcelain squares. I just didn’t like the colour of them.

Today’s blog post is my honest opinion on painting bathroom tiles. For my experiment I used the B&Q colour match service with vaslper paint. This is my humbled feed back.

It all started with trip to B&Q in the height of lockdown. ( an essential journey as our light bulbs had blown.) I found myself aimlessly detouring down the paint isle, (due to the oneway system in-store) (full marks for safety).

Talking to one of the employees, I asked about tile paint and explained what I wanted to achieve with our utility/bathroom on the budget I had. He patiently guided me through the option. Which brings me to the centre of this blog!

B&Q is home to the Vaslper paint mixing service. This service is incredible.

ThIs free colour matching service uses colour matching technology that can create any paint colour your eyes can ever imagine. You can use anything as a sample from wallpaper or fabrics to flowers and even your children’s toys. You can bring a kitchen plate and the team will magic match the colour.

However, let’s be realistic! Although the team can colour match most samples. They do advised you to avoid anything too shiny. Ideally the sample you are intending on using needs to be a solid colour with a surface ares of at least 0.5cm. I didn’t need to bring a sample as I wanted to colour match a Farrow&Ball Shade ’off black’

I had chosen my colour I wanted to use I now needed to decide on what paint product I needed for my project. When using this service for your own project. Your unique matched shade, can be mixed into any paint product you may desire. If you’re unsure what type of paint you will need. The team will be more than happy to guide you.

The colour matches can be mixed up in the following paint types:

• All in one primers and paint
• standard wall and ceiling
• masonry
• wood and metal
• kitchen and bathroom.

I chose the latter, bathroom paint. The bathroom paint can not be used alone when painting tiles. The helpful team member mixing my paint recommended the ‘Vaslper difficult surfaces Primer’ to ensure the paint adhered to the tiles, which would create a long lasting finish.

How to use the Vaslper paint

As you would with any painting task. I make sure any intended surface I am going to paint, is cleaned to an inch of it’s life. Using bathroom cleaning spray first to ensure it was squeaky clean. I then went over with B&Q sugar soap, ensuring sure all the dirt, grime and grease was removed. Top tip. Make sure the area you are working on is completely dry before starting any paint job.

Using a roller I applied two coats of the ‘difficult surface primer’. As primers go this wasn’t too bad to use. It spread over the tiles with ease and I didn’t have to use too much product. It was touch dry within an hour, however ensure 4 hours before you re-coat.

The bathroom paint which is mould resistant with scrub-ability is perfect for those high traffic spaces where knocks and scratches always occur. I mentioned before at the start of my blog, I had this colour matched in “off black”. So, was it really a magic match? Answer; oh yes! In my opinion it was rather an impressive match to the brands competitor with an extremely competitive price.

It was an absolute dream to work with, application was so easy and smooth. Using a roller the durable paint worked onto the tiles with great pleasure and the coverage was impressive, I hardly used any product. If you’re looking to use a specific shade and need a paint colour more bespoke, I definitely recommend using this product! Like the primer I only applied two coats and it was touch dry within the hour. Leaving 4 hours between coats to repaint!

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Now to answer a couple of your questions that was asked over on Thehomeslogg Instagram.

Why use a primer and normal bathroom paint? Why not use a specific tile paint?

Our bathroom/utility features half a wall with tiles and the other half is just a plan wall. I wanted to ensure that the colour matched precisely. Of course another option would have been to purchase two types of paint in the same shade. one for tiles and a separate for walls. However, Vaslper as yet doesn’t have a tile paint in the colour match range and I didn’t want to flaff buying two different types of paint!

A one-tin-does-all, so to speak, is more appealing to my simple DIY approach. That and as with all DIY projects of mine i was dictated by a budget. Vaslper was a cost effective way of creating the farrow&ball dark shade for a little less.

How durable is the paint on the tiles? Has it chipped off and can you clean them?

That’s exactly the question I would want answered. As of November 2020 I can honestly say this paint has been so durable! I mean I don’t want to say it or (type it) out loud, jinxing anything. But so far so good.

It has been 5 months since we painted our bathroom tiles. There has been no chipping and mould is nowhere to be seen. And FYI it has taken a real scrubbing of it’s life. I have used the harshest of cleaning products and it hasn’t impacted the quality of the finish what so ever!

I am thrilled with the outcome of this up-cycle. It looks like a completely different bathroom/utility! I can’t stress enough, the quality of the paint has been incredible. I always believe that something has to stand the test of time before I can recall if a product is good enough! B&Q have been incredibly helpful throughout out this journey. It was their great customer service and know how that enabled me to create such a good finish! It was on the advice of the helpful B&Q team member, I used the primer. Something that I perhaps would not of, in fact, – I know I would never have thought to use.

I was so impressed with B&Q that I used their own brand radiator paint. Anyway, I’ve kept you here long enough so we will chat about up- cycling radiators in the next one. In the meantime pop over to the B&Q website [ad] there is always deals to be had for all. Their new website [ad] has a range of products that you can buy including paint, power tools, lighting and many, many more!
Keep those eyes peeled for bargains when your DIY-ing your next project.

Much love

S x

---

Featured products

Vaslper Paint can be found here. [ad]

---

Shop my utility/bathroom interior

Amazon Shop https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/thehomeslogg [ad]

---