It Takes a Woman

Our bathroom has problems—not the least of which is ten of us sharing one bathroom. But I am talking about actual, physical problems that need repairs.

For one thing, due to a long-time but difficult-to-find leak, we now have a hole in the floor which can only be fixed by taking out the bath-tub and tearing out the floor. Well that's not going to happen until we get a shower (and walls, and a sink, and a door, and lights) in the basement bathroom. And who knows when we'll be able to manage all that? It will take some major moola. (You remember that the kitchen remodel is everything that can be done with paint. This is because paint is relatively cheap—compared to new floor, new flooring, new everything . . . for both bathrooms). Yes, this is a big problem which requires a big solution.

But our bathtub also has another, smaller problem. Somehow it got chipped, and the bottom started to rust (not all the way through, thank goodness). So we went to Home Depot and bought a $20-ish porcelain-bathtub-repair kit. It's this stuff that you just paint onto the bottom of the bathtub, let it set for 48 hours, and voila! Good as new!


Except that instead of setting up hard, it just made a rubbery layer of stuff that peeled right off.

So Bruce and I wondered if we'd done it wrong, if we should buy another kit and try again, or just what. I thought, What we need is something we can paint over the hole, that's waterproof, that is hard and long-lasting.

Hmmm.

I've got it! Fingernail polish!

So that's what I used. I washed and dried the tub, then applied about three layers of clear undercoat, and eight layers of white nail polish, followed by two more layers of clear topcoat (with 15 to 30 minutes of dry-time between each coat).

Smooth, hard, durable, waterproof. Voila!

It works great! I've used this bathtub-repair method three times now in the last year or so. One application of nail polish on your bathtub lasts four to five months before it starts to crack and chip. Then you just get out the nail-polish-remover, clean it all up and do it again. And after three applications I still have half a bottle of clear-coat, and half a bottle of white. Bathtub repair for about 66¢ a shot.

Seriously, a man never would have thought of this! ;-)