How to Paint Floor Tile

Do you have a tile floor that is needing an upgrade? It is surprisingly easy to paint floor tile! Learn how to do it all on your own!

Looking for other painting tips? Check out these:

Before teaching you how to paint floor tile here is a little backstory. We moved into my house a little over nine months ago. We have already done so many renovations and projects to the house but the bathrooms are unfortunately the last on our list. Our bathroom was just plain and had no real character to it. It was not bad but it was not good either. For a quick, easy and cheap facelift I decided to paint the already existing cream tile with a fun stencil and some chalk paint.

The before plain bathroom:

Materials and Tools:

  • Paint roller
  • Paint brush

Step-by-step Instructions

  1. Clean the floor.

    One of the most important steps is to make sure the surface is completely clean. Scrub it thoroughly with a rag or sponge so that the paint is able to stick to the tile.

  2. Apply base paint.

    I recommend applying 2 coats of the base paint to the tile and let it dry completely before doing anything else. Use a paint roller to apply it evenly!

  3. Tape down the stencil.

    Tape the stencil down and make sure they are placed where you want them.

  4. Paint over stencil.

    In the color you choose start painting over the stencil and remove the tape once it is all dry.

  5. Seal the floor.

    Once everything is dry, take a polycrylic glossy paint and make it even on the surface.

Detail Instructions for Painting Floor Tile

Step one:

Clean the floor and the grout using mineral spirits and a rag or sponge. I cleaned and scrubbed the grout and the tile both twice to make sure that it was really clean. This will help with cleaning and prepping the tile for the paint. The better you clean the better the paint will stick to the tile.

Step two:

Using a paint roller and a paintbrush, do the first coat of chalk paint. For the base color of the floor I used the Rust-Oleum Charcoal Chalk Paint. I did two coats of the base color allowing them to dry really good in between coats.

Step three:

Tape down the stencil where you want it to be, I used the old tile as a guide and I lined up my edges to make sure I stayed perfectly straight. I used the tape that was for paint and was for delicate surfaces to make sure that it would not peel up the paint after I had painted it. I started in the back left corner of the bathroom and worked me way to the door. Using a small stencil foam roller I applied a very little amount of Rust-Oleum White Linen Chalk Paint onto the roller. If you do too much paint the chances of it leaking under the stencil are very likely. Start with a little amount of paint and then do two coats if necessary. Don’t pull up the stencil until you like the coverage of the chalk paint. Otherwise it’s going to be hard to line it up if you need to apply a second coat.

Step four:

After the floor was completely stenciled and dry I did need to go in with the small paintbrush and do a few touchups. The touchups are very easy to do and on some of the stencil parts that needed to have a bit more coverage I was able to use a small brush to touch up those areas as well. The stencil left a few random dots here and there and I wanted it to look really clean and crisp.

Step five:

After I was completely satisfied how the paint looked I applied two coats of polycrylic to seal the floor. Around the toilet area, the sink area and the shower area I was sure to get the coats of the polycrylic really well because I knew that there would be water on the floor there. Are use a satin finish because I wanted to not have the floor look really shiny or glossy. But you can use any finish you want.

Step six:

I am beyond thrilled on how the DIY bathroom tile turned out. For less than $50 I was able to take a boring old bathroom and turn it into something fun and a space with a ton of character.

I love that Rust-Oleum Chalk Paint can be used in so many different ways. I love that chalk paint has more of a matte finish and Chalk Paint is the only paint I would use to paint these old boring tiles and turn it into something that I can be proud of.

Check out this full bathroom reveal plus you can see the original chain pulling toilet and green wood trim that was in the bathroom when we moved in and all the other details about this bathroom on our Blog Classy Clutter HERE.

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