House drama, part 2 -- success

 My life lately seems to feel like it is one failure after another, which is anything but the truth.  Life can be like that.  One is on a beautiful road, but you only see the potholes which threaten to eat your tires.

That said, it has been long enough I can post about this success.  I'm going right to the best picture first:

Look at that!!!  I don't think it has ever looked that nice, not in the 23+ years I have lived here.  It was a process.  For anyone who comes across this and wants to know what I did, here are the gory details:

Mix peroxide and baking soda into a paste.  I wish I had learned this years ago.  It works well to take iron off of tile and tub.  You just use your hand and fingers to rub it.  No other tools necessary, and it washes off with water.  I will say, after a while you have to just walk away.  I don't know if the peroxide continues to work or if the brain holds the old memory.  When I think it doesn't look like it's working, I walk away for an hour and come back.  Peroxide and baking soda got me to this point below.  Did I mention that there was no finish left on the tub in places?

So I slept on it.  Something triggered in my memory, and I mixed up some iron out and made my own spray.  If you do that, WAIT to put in in the spray bottle until it is done foaming.  I killed a spray bottle by not waiting.  Another word of warning here: DO NOT MIX ANYTHING WITH IRON OUT.  I sprayed and walked away a few times.  

Once that was finished, then it was time for Porc-a-fix.  If one is a perfectionist, trying to match color is the difficult step.  I didn't care enough to try harder, because seriously, a 1976 bathtub is going to be hard to match.  I suppose had I really wanted to get creative, I could have picked another color and made polka dots.   Husband and I tag-teamed the patching.  He'd see a spot I missed.  I found one he missed.  I decided that since there was no finish at all around the drain I was just going to paint it like crazy.  

After the Porc-a-fix was set, then we used a tile and grout sealer (smallest bottle I could get from Home Depot) to seal it.  Bill did that part.  Two coats, and water actually *beads* now.  That has never happened in 23 years.  

It's not a new bathroom, but it sure looks better.  I hope this inspires someone.