So I need to paint the wood trim on the bathroom window (God only knows WHY anyone would put a wood-trimmed window in a shower, especially in Portland). There will be two straight days of no rain next week! Yay. This is definitely the time to do it.
The questions is… how long do I have to NOT use the shower in order to let it dry out before painting? And even more importantly, how long does the paint have to dry BEFORE being able to use the shower again? How long will I have to drive to L.A. Fitness in order to use running water? It might even be rainless all next week… possibly for the only time this year… so factor that in.
What type of paint are you using?
I used gloss latex in my shower and used the shower the next day. That was in the winter when my gas furnace dries the heck out of everything.
You might try going to a paint store and asking what they’d recommend.
The thing is that next week actually SHOULD be dry. Otherwise, I don’t know how painting that window could ever work. (Why, oh why, did anyone think it was a good idea to have a br window in this climate…)
Let it dry 24 hours, then cover it with some plastic when you shower for a while if you’re worried about it. If you’re using latex high gloss it will repel water very well after just a few hours. You should also caulk the seams of the trim where it meets the wall or the window frame.
Are you stripping the old finish off? If not what is the finish you are painting over? You should probably use a primer first and particularly if you are using one type of paint over another type such as latex over oil based paint. I’d recommend visiting a real paint store like Sherwin Williams or Benjamin Moore and asking. They will know how people are successfully doing what you want to do. They may be a little more expensive if you buy there so it depends on how long you plan to stay there and how good it needs to be and how much you are willing to spend.
Another thought, can you buy or borrow an electric space heater to dry the room out real good.
I just went upstairs and got the paint I used in the shower. It’s Olympic Premium Kitchen And Bath Enamel, Semi-Gloss. I used a primer first as I was painting over that cheesy bathroom paneling that vaguely resembles square tiles. Stayed on pretty good so far, maybe six months or so. If you just want to get some paint on without a bunch of research I’d say try this stuff. It’s acrylic latex, water cleanup.
Good luck!
I just painted some trim the other day with Olympic Premium interior/exterior high gloss enamel, (it’s a latex/acrylic, so cleanup is soap and water) and the directions say it’s dry in one hour and to wait four hours before doing a second coat.
High humidity will stretch out the drying time, but as long as it’s not foggy in the bathroom, overnight is probably more than enough. Some rain landed on my freshly painted trim after two hours, drying, and it was unharmed.
AFAIK, Olympic is a Lowe’s house brand. Of the “home center” brands, it’s my favorite for trim. For regular wall paint, however, my pick is Glidden Duo (from Home Depot) in eggshell finish. Two coats of that stuff will hide darn near anything.
It’s appropriate that I missed the edit window in a thread about windows…
An example of Duo’s hiding power - I covered dark chocolate brown with two coats of “apartment beige” flawlessly with no primer when I moved out of a house last year. If I didn’t have a few misses with the roller, (and a $1500 deposit on the line) I might have been able to sneak by with only one coat
You won’t be able to use masking tape unless you get the delicate surfaces stuff that won’t ruin the fresh paint, and even with that, you need to wait 24 hours.
If you don’t already, this will be good time to learn how to “cut in” edges by hand.
As mentioned, latex dries very quickly. If you use an oil-based paint, I’d give it eight hours before exposure, but there’s really no reason to use that type of paint, as modern acrylic latex paint does the job quite nicely in a fraction of the time. But do use gloss or semi-gloss finish in the bathroom.
It might even be rainless all next week… possibly for the only time this year… so factor that in.
On the same day… or within a few hours… that kind of thing. )