The Old Man and the Street

The hall bath on the second floor appears to have been redone in the twenties or thirties, and with the exception of a new toilet, it’s had precious little done to it since then. The walls are covered in green Vitrolite (an art-deco glass panelling), the tub and sink are peach, the toilet is white, and the tiles are different shades of peach.

Well, M. and I decided that the green could stay, but the peach had to go, so today we had the tub re-coated with white porcelain. This is definitely not the kind of work to do yourself, here’s what the recoating guy did:

• Carefully taped off of the tub’s fixtures and everything around the tub. He taped cups to the tub spigot and shower head to prevent drips
• Covered most of the bathroom and a fair piece of the hallway in paper.
• Washed the tub with acid to etch the existing porcelain to allow the new finish to bond tightly with the old one.
• Sprayed on the new finish.
• Cleaned up all the mess and left the tape/paper around the edges of the tub for me to take off on Sunday.

Oh, and did I mention how bad it smelled? It’s not quite as bad as the Swedish Finish from when the floors were redone, but it was equally noxious. It looks amazing!