A Bathroom Update: How to Paint Your Bathroom Tile Floor

Stay within your budget with this easy tutorial from North Country Nest on how to paint your bathroom tile floor with chalk paint! [post contains affiliate links, which means we may make a small commission, at NO additional cost to you, if a purchase is made. thanks for supporting north country nest!]

It’s been awhile, huh?!

I am so excited to share some bathroom updates with you today… and best of all, a tutorial on how to paint bathroom floor tile!

If you remember back to the original bathroom design plans, I mentioned giving the whole ‘painting tile’ thing a shot and I’m happy to report the results are well worth the effort! And bonus, it’s a fraction of the cost (and labor) of putting in new tile!

Here’s where we started:

And here’s where we’re at today:

Before I dive into the full tutorial, this is what has been done:

• Sanded and restained the vanity (still haven’t finished the doors, which are a pain in the you-know-what to sand)
• Painted the window frame
• Painted the walls
• Painted the hardware (towel hook, towel rack, hand towel hook)
• Painted the floor
• Painted the mirror frame (same-ish color but cleaned up quite a bit)
• Painted the light fixture and added two cage-covers

The magic of paint never ceases to amaze me!

Okay, enough small talk – here’s how to paint your bathroom tile floor!

Supplies list:

• Floor stencil 
• Chalk paint, Rustoleum Linen White
• Chalk paint, Rustoleum Charcoal
• Klean Strip Sander Deglosser
• Cleaning rag
• Paint roller, extra smooth
• Paint roller tray
• Sand paper, 100 grit
• Palm Grip Sander
• Paint brush
• Polyurethane top coat (I used a one-coat that we had on hand, but if I could choose, I’d select a specific floor polyurethane)

Step One: Prep

After lots of research, the common theme with others who have tried this is spending a lot of time prepping and cleaning. So, I grabbed my new favorite sander and went over the tile with 100 grit sandpaper. Then, using paper towels, a bottle of Sander Deglosser and good ole’ fashioned elbow grease, scrubbed the entire floor.

Quick tip if you have animals: Clean your feet before you step into the space and don’t wear socks. Even being extra careful, there are a few spots with black dog hair stuck in the paint.

Step Two: Paint  

Once the entire space was dry from cleaning (I waited until the next day), it was time to paint the base coat (Rustoleum Linen White).

I worked in sections and before rolling, I used an angled brush to paint the all the grout lines. Then, I went back and rolled the rest of the tile using an extra-smooth roller.

I ended up applying two full coats of the base and then went back to touch up any spots that didn’t cover well.

After allowing a full day to dry, it was time for the stencil.

If you remember, I originally was planning on doing a hexagon-style, but laziness won out and I wanted something that was large and wouldn’t take too much extra time. Thus, a larger pattern won the battle and I’m sure glad it did!

I first started with the full tiles and in the opposite corner from the door. You do NOT want to box yourself in so plan accordingly 🙂

Thankfully, the pattern was nearly the exact size of each tile so spacing wasn’t an issue.

With the first few rows, I would lay down the stencil, paint and then clean it off entirely. Once again, laziness won over and I started lengthening the time between cleaning the stencil and found that a clean stencil didn’t detract from the paint bleeding through.

Quick tip: Hold the stencil with one hand and roll with the other. Then, use the clean hand to pick up the corner and place it on the next tile. 

After finishing the full tiles, I left it overnight to dry.

Then, for the cut-tiles, I started with the largest one and cut the stencil to size. It wasn’t an exact science by any means, but it worked. I slowly started cutting the stencil until I was stenciling the smallest cut-tile with the smallest piece of stencil.

After I was done with that, I went back over and touched up the obvious ‘oopsie’ spots. I didn’t spend a ton of time on this because I wanted it done and not perfect, however, there were some glaringly obvious spots that look much better with a little touch up.

Step Three: Protect

Once the stencil was dry (again, waiting overnight) it was time to apply the top coat for protection.

In a perfect world, I would have purchased the same polyurethane I used for the plywood floors. However, this bathroom refresh is on a budget so I just used what I had on hand, which was a one coat polyurethane.

I applied three coats (waiting about three to four hours in between each coat) of the polyurethane top coat and then let it dry overnight.

Of course, the painting coincided with some unusually high humidity for this time of year so the floor was a bit sticky the next day, but seemed to harden after another full 24 hours.

And that is how to paint your bathroom tile floor!

All our best,