Some time ago my husband deemed me the caulking queen of our house. When he caulks he always makes a huge mess and it never turns out as well as when I do it. But even when I do the caulking it can still get pretty messy. I usually go through about 10 paper towels trying to wipe up all the excess caulking that gets everywhere! Ages ago I saw a tip on Pinterest that was supposed to make caulking less messy, so I thought I’d give it a try. So today I’m going to show you how I caulked our recently painted bathtub, and I’m going to give you a simple tutorial that will show you how to caulk without making a mess!
When I painted our bathtub/shower a few weeks ago I had to remove all the caulking so now I need to go back and re-caulk it. {Click HERE to see the post about painting the tub/shower}.
First use painters tape to tape a line along the entire surface where you want to caulk. Make sure to put a line of tape on both sides where the caulking will be put.
Once the surface is taped run a line of caulking all along the surface you need caulked.
Next use your finger and run it lightly over the caulking to press it into the crack.
The caulking will spread out and make a mess on the tape but that’s why the tape is there! Let the caulking dry for a few minutes and then peel the tape away at an angle.
Once you peel the tape away you’ll be left with a perfectly straight caulking line and absolutely no mess!
I think this is my new favorite DIY trick because it saved so much time and was mess-free! Do you have any tricks for how to caulk without making a mess? I’d love to hear them!
Here’s the post to see how I painted our tub/shower
My brother taught me a trick when caulking things. All you do is put your caulk where needed and then spray it with windex !! Yep windex. Then take your finger and spread like normal. For whatever reason the windex helps from making a mess. Has worked for me like a charm every time.
A spray bottle with water will do the same thing 🙂
It looks great! You might also want to check out this tool, it made my caulk turn out really well with no mess! This is not the exact one I have, but similar. http://www.starmarinedepot.com/star-brite-caulk-rite-tool.html?gclid=CLDCpKPHlL0CFQ2hOgodzAoA-g
My husband refuses to scrape out the ugly old caulk and recaulk our tub, but after seeing you do this, I am going to remove the old, stained caulk and recaulk myself. Yes, I can do this.
You can totally do it! It’s not hard at all, just kind of gross to see how nasty the old caulking can get. 🙂
Great! Now I am definitely going to clean out the mess I made last year and redo it this way. Thank you!
When I use tape on trim, the caulk sticks to the tape and pulls what I just caulked. Is it because I let the caulk dried overnight? My guess is you want to pull the tape after you caulk instead of letting it sit overnight. Let me know, It is my first time doing this.
Thanks
Yeah, you want to pull the tape off right after you finish, so the caulking is tacky but not dry. Good luck!
I love what you did! I want to do all of what you did to my bathroom but what I’m mostly concerned about is the paint peeling off the tiles from the steam in the bathroom. Any advise would help greatly.
Thank you
Susan
The paint won’t peel off because of the steam, if you use the product I used–Rustoleum Tub and Tile Refinishing Kit. You can see my post about it here – https://askannamoseley.com/2014/04/how-to-update-an-ugly-bathtub/