Rub-a-Dub-Dub

...we've blackened a tub.

Getting the bathtub through the bathroom door was a trick in itself. Now we want to refinish the inside and outside before we put it back in. For the inside, we've called in the ceramic-refinishing experts. They'll be here in a few days. But the outside? Bah! We can do that ourselves!

This is a big ol' cast iron clawfoot tub that weighs about a million pounds. It's all we could do to move it a few inches outside the bathroom door, where it's been resting on its side like an animal with its feet in the air. As you can see, the outside of the tub was painted gold at some time in the past, but the paint ran and left streaks. It's also tarnished a bit since those glory days, so there's some cleanup required there, too.

We're faced with a dilemma: we want to clean up and repaint the bathtub, but we can't move it anywhere. It's blocking the small hallway, but there's really nowhere else we can move it. It's certainly not going downstairs, and it doesn't make sense to move it back into the bathroom yet while we're still working on everything. So we're going to paint it in situ.

To that end, I made this little impromptu paint booth. We taped up plastic drop cloths to cover the walls and floor. My shop vac provides air evacuation of a sort, and I've already got a good filter mask. Add in a couple of rattle cans and we're good to go!

The first day was spent scrubbing the outside with steel wool. That took off some of the old paint and loosened up some rust and other crud. Once the tub was nice and smooth I vacuumed up the dust and wiped down the tub. Painter's tape protects the porcelain rim of the tub and the claw feet. (Kathy will refinish these later with silver leaf.)

Of course, I can only paint one side of the tub at a time, so I spray on a few light coats, wait 48 hours for it to dry, then flip the tub over on its other side and repeat the process. The upstairs smells nasty with paint fumes, but the weather is warm and the windows are all open, so the dizziness goes away quickly.

So far, so good. In a few more days we should be able to move the behemoth back into its berth and start plumbing it in. Unfortunately, I don't think it'll be ready to use by July 4th, so guests will have to make do with the downstairs shower for another week or so.