Painting Glazed Tile on an Outdoor Patio Dining Table
One of my favorite things to shop for in the online classifieds is used patio furniture...mostly because high end outdoor pieces are crazy expensive! One can dream of discovering that unobtrusive ad with no photos posted by a North Scottsdale resident that "just needs gone" their $6000 stunning chairs and settee set (with perfect Sunbrella cushions, of course) for an obtainable amount of $400. The hunt for the elusive 500 pound "Old World" detailed wrought iron table that can withstand any summer monsoon haboob for $200 (and not $2000!) would be the ultimate score.
This set was not that find.
Ok, my nightly perusing of the online ads had not yielded any prizes for awhile so it was time to take a different tack. Grandma and Grandpa had just made a big move, relocating their permanent home from north Idaho to more temperate Prescott. My NEW mission became finding a dining set so they and their guests could enjoy the wonderful weather and amazing Arizona sunsets al fresco. The criteria changed from stunning design to all metal/all weather... no sling fabric, plastic webbing or glass table top that could be flipped and shattered by a nasty summer microburst. Funnily enough, I found an unobtrusive ad with no photos posted by a North Scottsdale resident that just needed gone their basic big box store set for $50.
SOLD!
The set was newer. It was clean. Perfectly functional for its purpose of providing a place for butts and plates to sit and eat. Did I run it right up and present it to Grandma immediately after picking it up? No, of course not.
Why? Because the inset brown tile was boring. How hard could it possibly be to find a cool pattern on a square tile?
Impossible, I soon found out.
Of course, the table recess rails were made specifically for this particular tile which is the ONLY square tile in existence that measures 11 7/8" x 11 7/8".
FOILED!
Step back, reevaluate and realize the unusual tile size was a godsend. Large patterned tile could have run 5-6-7 bucks a square foot? With 14 tiles in the table, Grandma's little surprise was not penciling out. However, if I stenciled the existing tile I could erase the boring brown glaze with paint and elbow grease. AND, Grandmas birthday was coming up which would give me a good deadline to work towards to be sure I finished all 14 tiles. (I tend to start a project and, while working on it, be dreaming up the next. Since I already have the current finished product envisioned I dive into the new one without completing the original one. Drives my Project Completer husband nuts.) Excited about the new plan I began researching what to use to paint glazed tile. Lucky for my timeline, lots of people have played with making paint adhere to slick porcelain... and there and some great products out there that work.
The next hang up- I don't like to stencil. Its not that I don't like the look or the amazing patterns that are available... I'm just not good at it. Whenever a project that would be super fast and look super great using stencils comes around I regress back to hand painting. So, the instructions to follow for a one~of~a~kind, awesome, custom table will be from a hand painting point of view. Trust me, stenciling would probably cut the time I spent on each tile by 80%.
On a project time/difficulty scale from 1 to 5 (1 being easy/5 super involved);
stenciling the tile would be 3.5
whereas my hand painting technique blew right off the scale and landed at
"Labor of Love".
Here we go:
STEP 1: FIND YOUR PATTERN
Courtesy of the Internet I found a pattern that I liked for Grandma's table, appeared do-able and bonus; had the perfect colors already laid out in the pattern.
If only it had come in the elusive 11 7/8" x 11 7/8"...
alas, its only a 5 x 5 tile.
No problem...
Alternative: find a stencil pattern that will work on your size tile
STEP 2: ENLARGE YOUR PATTERN
A flatbed printer is invaluable for manipulating sizes of drawings. If you don't have one at home you can do this same process at an office supply print center. First print a clear straight on photo of your pattern. The pattern was going to end up larger than a standard
8 1\2 x 11 sheet of paper so I was going to have to piece it together with several sheets. I made a mark in the enter of the tile with a permanent marker. Then I started trial and error on guessing the amount to enlarge.
I put a hole in the center of the enlarged paper pattern...when I found the marker mark on the tile in the hole in the paper I could see if the edges of the paper matched up with the edges of the tile. Once I found a close enough enlargement percentage I moved the original around on the flatbed scanner to make all four corners.
The final pattern ended up being four pieces of overlapping paper. Here it is taped together sitting on top of the tile. The overlap made some areas lighter in the transfer step but because I traced this 14 times it actually helped the pattern hold together better.
Alternative: ignore this step if you have a stencil pattern
Don't ignore the next step!
STEP 3: PREP YOUR TILE
CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN your tile! Luckily these were fairly new and been outside so they were not exposed to things like kitchen grease or a build up of cleaning products. I scrubbed these with Dawn dish soap and let dry.
It was summer in Phoenix (120 degree plus in the garage...not going to happen) so I painted these in my studio room in the house on the floor, in the AC, under a fan. I used extra large black trash bags as drop cloths...they hold liquid spills, can slide large groups of tiles around and can use them to pick up the trash at the end.
Next I used 100 grit sandpaper to rough up the glaze as much as possible to give it some "tooth". I couldn't see a big difference but anything will help the paint stick permanently. After sanding I wiped the tiles with rubbing alcohol.
I read a lot of primer reviews and project experiences before settling on trying a shellac based primer that was suitable for indoor/outdoor use, claims it can stick to all surfaces without sanding, "lightning fast" drying and accepts any top coat. Hoping it would be 90% of what it claimed I did apply two coats of primer; one way and then the next the opposite way...just to be sure.
After note: the primer was true to its claims. My "go to" primer now!
STEP 4: BASE COAT YOUR TILE
At this step I was imagining having to order online some crazy specialty paint for porcelain tile applications. To my relief, majority of people that have painted on tile suggested basic acrylic paint...house paint. I have LOADS of good house paint...can't walk past a paint counter without checking their oops selection. There is plenty of various whites in my current paint collection as well as a nice medium tone semi-gloss blue that I used to tint our study wall paint into a subtle Robins Egg blue. Looking at my design I decided the most efficient layering of the paint was to base coat with the blue and then paint the white and black elements over top. Using a soft acrylic bristle 2" brush I began base coating...and then stopped.
My oops blue was drying far darker and more intense than I wanted...and I was REALLY in love with the tone on the original pattern.
So, I mixed some white with the blue and, YES!, the perfect baby blue match appeared! Apply two coats of base color over the two coats of primer. Let dry COMPLETELY between coats.
Note to stencilers: your surface is now ready! Stencil away and then join back up for Step 7- sealing.
STEP 5: TRANSFER YOUR PATTERN TO THE TILE
Remember when we played with the printer and blew up the design? Time to use it! I used to spend big bucks on specialty artist transfer papers until I found at the office supply stores packages of 25 sheets basic black carbon paper for typewriters.
To transfer the design, use blue tape to lightly hold your pattern to the tile. Slip the carbon paper, carbon side down, in between the pattern and the tile. Use a ball point pen and trace the pattern. Check it often to make sure your pressing hard enough to get a transfer. Don't get too carried away with tracing that you forget to move the carbon paper under the area your working on. Keep lifting and moving carbon paper, try not to make the transfer so dark that you'll have to repaint your base coat to clean it up.
STEP 6: PAINT YOUR PATTERN ON THE TILE
I preferred transferring and painting each tile one at a time rather than transferring all 14 first. It was motivating to look over and see a painted tile while tracing the next. This motivation is invaluable to anyone choosing to hand paint their tiles. Unfortunately, paint always looks better with two coats ("The Two Coat Rule") and this detail work with house paint was no exception. I chose to paint the black first and then the white, mostly because of the center medallion. I found round Gold Taklon craft brushes to be the best for the detail work. About three tiles in I began struggling with painting clean lines and realized my brushes were blown out and tips gone. No reason to torture yourself with ruined brushes, I found brush value packs of Gold Taklon bristle rounds in sizes 1,3,5 and 8 and bought several packs. Thankfully the tiles were turning out so stunning I kept on painting...all 14...each tile taking 2 hours....
at this point I wished I was better at stenciling!
STEP 7: SEALING YOUR TILE
Again, I did a lot of reading up on clear sealers before picking one for my "Labor of Love" table top. I've tried different types over the years...some yellow over time, some crack in the desert sun and an oil based spar wouldn't be the best over acrylic house paint. Ended up using water based ultimate polyurethane clear gloss. I would have preferred to do 5-7 coats but ran out of time and got two on and dried before Grandmas birthday deadline.
FINISHED!
Here is the completed table!
I'm very happy with the products used and confident that the process will result in a long term beautiful custom finish.
Grandma and Grandpa were so impressed they decided not to put it outside right away and set it up in their dining area. We enjoyed our holiday meals on stunning painted tiles.
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