peace, love and refinishing the tub (and sink)

I am a hippie at heart. In middle school and the early part of high school, I used to wear a peace sign, plaid bell-bottoms, a head band... the whole shebang. My 9th grade health class asked required us to keep a journal with teacher led questions every day. The one that stands out is "If you could live in one decade, which would it be and why?" My not so wise or worldly 9th grade self answered "I would have lived in the 60's. I really like hippie clothes, peace, and VW's. Plus, marching in protests would have been fun."

Earth to 9th grade Cori! The reason for these protests were war! The US was internally in a state of peril and strife. I am embarassed that I ever said this, but like I said, I am a hippie at heart, and I knew that before I ever fully knew the reasons behind it (thankfully, I have gained much perspective and wisdom in the last 14 years).

So yes, I tend toward the bohemian, hippie, free spirit "inspired" decorating in my home. That doesn't mean I want the remnants of these relics to be left behind in my bathroom. Remember the old bathtub from the house:


Those little flower power buggers were an absolute nightmare to deal with. They were already chipping in many places, so they couldn't be left on. I tried just about every cleaning product to get them off the bottom of the tub: goo gone, simple green, ZAP (which works fantastically to clean the grout), bleach, acetone, etc. etc. etc.


I ended up really roughing up the bottom of the tub, but I beat the decals. I win.

Once I knew the decals were completely up, I talked with my dad about having the tub resurfaced. He said that it would cost somewhere around $500. Unfortunately, that is not in the budget right now. He also mentioned that there are epoxy kits to resurface the tub at Home Depot for about $50. Much better! This way, we were able to treat both the tub AND the sink!

The sink before

The sink drain before

The kit includes two identical aerosol containers of the epoxy, steel wool, tsp, and rubber gloves.


The steps are as follows:

Clean out the tub with the TSP dissolved in warm water
Wipe dry
Scrub, scrub, scrub with the steel wool
Rinse
Wipe Dry.

Repeat 2 more times (for a total of 3).

Tub after scouring

Once you are done with these steps, tape all around the tub and use either butchers paper or plastic (plastic is probably ideal, but we didn't have any) to shield your lovely peach tile from the spray. Make sure to tape off all of the chrome bits at the bottom and faucet level of the tub.

We only did the basin of the tub, which worked out just fine.

Once we did this, we pulled in the big gun (aka my dad) to do the actual spraying of the first layer of the sink.


Once he showed us, I did the rest. The first coat should be really, really light. Let it dry for 15-30 minutes, and repeat. With two cans, we did the sink and the basin of the tub with plenty left over.

The sink looks much better, although definitely not perfect. We are installing a new faucet, which will cover most of the chipping in the bottom of the sink, although the handles are not quite large enough to cover the outline. I think it will still look A-OK.


The tub turned out great. We ran into a little bit of a problem when I applied the epoxy a little bit too thick. It does this strange orange peel things, so we just wiped it up really quickly and let it dry, then applied the second coat.

Party foul

Worked like a charm

Tada!

When you are all done with the spraying, you need to leave the blue tape on for 3 full days before the full reveal. I don't know how this epoxy will wear, but I read that I should not use bleach on it. I am just happy that those heinous flowers are gone! I am super happy with how it turned out.