People Say I'm Caulky

Once upon a time, my beloved husband, who shall remain nameless, mistakenly used LIQUID NAILS rather than SILICON CAULK to seal our toilet and bathtub. Over time, the liquid nails turned uuuuuugly.

Really Ugly not-Caulk

It wasn't a big deal, because, heck, it was the "kids'" bathroom anyway. And sure, my mother-in-law had to use it when she visited, but I didn't have to look at it every day, so I "forgot" about it, mostly. But then, we decided to move to Austin and had to clean up our stupid house.

SO, I put on my safety goggles:

Gathered some tools:

 

 And worked really, really hard, until that turned into this:

Turned into this:

Nice right?

Yes Brandy, good work. *pat pat*

So. We've been in mold lovers land for about 8 months now. And who ever caulked my bathroom here thought the best plan was just to caulk over moldy caulk. If you can't see it, it's not mouldering. But, eventually, I grew tired of brown fuzzy shower, so I caulked again!

HOW TO CAULK LIKE A GIRL:

Get a razor blade, masking tape, the right kind of caulk (I do not recommend liquid nails!), a caulking gun, a spray bottle of water, and a rag you never wanna use again.

1. Use a razor blade and lottsa random stuff to scrape away all the old caulk and get it all nice and smooth and clean.

1.5 Makes sure everything is perfectly dry.

2. Use masking tape to frame out the area to be caulked. It just needs to be kindof a thinish space, I say 1/2 to maybe 3/4 of an inch, total.

3. Load your caulk gun AFTER you snip the end of the tub and puncture the seal if necessary. Otherwise you can load the gun, try to caulk, unload the gun, snip the end, load the gun, try to caulk, unload the gun, puncture the seal, load the gun, caulk.

4. Sometimes the stupid caulking gun is really feisty and the trigger hard, but man up and squeeze a stripe (they call it is bead, but its a freakin' long bead!) of caulk right into the seam/crack. I do a yard or so section at a time.

5. Spray the water along the bead and on your finger. The caulk won't stick where there is water; I'm a very messy girl, so this helps.

6. Use your finger to smooth the caulk along the seam and wipe excess on rag. This will totally ruin your manicure, I would imagine.

7. Remove tape.

7.5 Sometimes I go over it once more with my finger if it doesn't quite look right.

8. Clean up your crap, throw away the tape and old caulk, put the tools away and do a happy dance because you are an awesome woman!

9. Let it dry for however long it says; they mean what they say!

10. Also, just in case I'm wrong, watch this DIY video: