DIY - How to Restore a Shower

I hate cleaning showers.  Especially as our ensuite shower is 13 years old and when you clean it, it never looks shiny and new again.  It's so frustrating - It feels like such a waste of time.  I would dearly love a new ensuite, but the reality is, it will be a number of years before we can renovate it.  So if I have to live with this shower for the next few years, it was going to need a little restoration.

Step 1 - Replace the cheap water saving fixed shower head with a massage shower head on a rail, so it is easy to clean the shower.

I chose the Methven Amio 5 function shower head.  Oh yeah!

 Step 2 - I can't look at these feature tiles any longer, so I painted over them with Zissner 123 primer and 2 coats of white gloss paint.  You can buy specialist tile paint, but it wasn't worth it for me as I only had to paint 3 tiles.

Step 3 - Rejuvenate the grout.  After 13 years the white grout was no longer white.  I didn't want to have to scrape out and re-grout the whole thing.  So firstly I cleaned the whole shower with a good mould cleaner. 

Then I wanted to freshen up the grout.  Originally I tried one of those white grout pens, but it didn't really work well.  I think they are really designed for drawing fake grout lines over painted tiles rather than making real grout lines white again  Then I discovered Selleys Grout Stain Whitener. 

This stuff is great.  It's basically pre-mixed white grout in a tube with a sponge applicator.  Squeeze it on over the grout lines, let it dry for 30-120 minutes, and when dry wipe over the tiles with a sponge to remove the excess grout.  I found a flat sponge rather than a cloth (Chux) worked best.  Here's the tiles with the grout squeezed on:

and here's how they turned out:

Honestly - They look brand new.

The final step in the restoration process was the glass shower screen.  For this I used Enduroshield.

It's a protective coating for glass.  It's a two part process.  Firstly you clean the glass with the cleaning solution and some fine steel wool.  Then you seal the glass with the sealer.  Once the sealer has cured (about 8 hours) like the box says - It's like water off a duck's back.  The water just beads on the glass.  A quick wipe over with a micro fibre cloth and the shower screen sparkles like new again.  Oh why didn't I do this earlier?

So here's my finished shower

I was so happy with the way it turned out that I also used the grout whitener and Enduroshield sealer on the downstairs shower.  The shower has been done for a few weeks now, and it is so much easier to clean.  Well worth the effort.

This is not a sponsored post.  These are just the products I used and I thought they were great.

Sharing at - The Shabby Creek Cottage