Undersea Fantasy Bathtub

My bathtub was very stained and deeply abrased when I bought the house.....I am told the old lady who lived here for 41 years was OBSESSIVELY clean and had literally scrubbed the tub to death. I looked into new tubs/tuber liners/tub coatings, but all were expensive and in some cases, not remotely robust and durable.

So a couple of years ago, with my tidy friend Michael Mowry soon coming from Denver for a visit to see his amazing 92 year old grandma Mary in Lakeland, and me, and my shower stall and tub gross enough to send most tidy folks into septic shock, I figured I had FINALLY better deal with it.

I had previously over the years considered MANY possible treatments of the shower stall walls to fit with the Undersea Fantasy Theme....mosaics of seashells, broken mirror fragments, glass marbles, and many more.....each and all struck me as having one or more shortcomings.....so my gross bathtub lingered on since I shower mostly outdoors. But one night when I was nicely altered after a few drinks and smoking some fine cannabis I realized that all along I had owned the solution...and it came from a dumpster years prior.

It was a gallon can of a very transparent blue "paint" I had scrounged ages before. The label indicated it was for use at salt water locations for infrastructure....so I assumed it was water and salt resistant.

So I INTENSELY cleaned the shower stalls walls and tubs (I now feel I should have intensely also sandpaper those surfaces too for even better adhesion of the acrylic "paint". Next I rinsed them well, dried them, rubbed them down with rubbing alcohol I had dumpster dived a lot of to remove all body and soap oils, then towel dried all surfaces again.

I had recently dumpster dived an entire box of latex gloves, so I donned them, took a big car washing sponged I had dived previously, wetted it, plunged it into the transparent blue paint, squeezed out the excess, then, nervously and cautiously, did a few timid dabs on the tub.....I LOVED IT immediately! Wonderfully rich blue and transparent, and VERY amenable to layering.

It took at most at twenty minutes to sponge paint the whole tub and shower stall. I opened the bathroom window to help it all dry and disperse the paint fumes. After a few days, I used a paint roller and a big sponge (for corners and other tight areas)to seal all the surfaces with a super shiny "wet look" acrylic floor polish I had previously scrounged. I repeated that a couple days later as two coats made sense to me.

So when Michael arrived from Denver, he could shower in a pristine, trippily blue tub and shower. Total monetary cost to me? Whatever that one paint roller I'd bought in a budget bag earlier had cost me.....$1?

I love showering outdoors, but on chilly days, (of which we've had many this winter) I indulge in the comfort of a very brief warm water shower in my Undersea Fantasy Bathtub. Most of the year, the shower is unused except for guests. Once in a while, the coating gets nicked from the plastic bucket I use to catch water until it gets hot and use thatI use to flush poop since I always pee outdoors to help the soil and plants.

But it is VERY easy to use a small sponge to dab the blue transparent paint to cover the exposed white tub....just let it dry a day or two.

One of the things I have enjoyed about dumpster diving since 1976 is that it creates options we'd not be too inclined to think of out of the blue. Discards from our work environment, dumpster and street curb treasures, and alley finds, can prove to be catalysts for super-frugal and joyfully creative solutions to a broad spectrum of problems.....like a way-gnarly bathtub.

John

John