About Oakland Tub & Tile Refinishing

Who we are

Oakland Tub & Tile Refinishing started in 2009 with one spray gun, one van, and a simple bet: that most of the tired tubs in Oakland's older flats were worth saving, not hauling to the dump. Seventeen years and more than 3,140 refinished fixtures later — about 1,800 bathtubs, 500 showers, 375 sinks, 250 countertops and 190 tile surrounds, roughly 185 a year — that bet has held up. We are a refinishing specialist, not a general remodeler. Reglazing is the whole job, every day, which is why a coat we spray on a Monday morning in Rockridge looks the same five years on as the one we sprayed in Fruitvale the week before.

Refinishing, reglazing, resurfacing — the words get used interchangeably, and they all mean the same thing: bonding a fresh, sprayed coating onto the fixture you already have so it looks and feels new again. It is not a stick-in liner, and it is not a replacement. Done with real prep and a quality acrylic-urethane topcoat, it lasts 10 to 15 years and costs 50 to 75 percent less than ripping the fixture out. That gap is the whole reason we exist.

What we refinish

Our day-to-day is bathtubs — cast-iron, porcelain-over-steel, fiberglass and acrylic — but the same coatings and prep work go onto showers, sinks, countertops and wall tile. A typical week runs the full list:

• Bathtubs

  Heritage cast-iron and porcelain, plus 1980s fiberglass and acrylic units.

  Bathtub reglazing

• Showers & surrounds

  Fiberglass pans and tiled walls re-coated and re-caulked.

  Shower refinishing

• Sinks & countertops

  Porcelain sinks, cultured marble vanities and laminate tops.

  Countertop refinishing

• Tile

  Dated bathroom and kitchen tile resurfaced without a tear-out.

  Tile reglazing

We also handle the repairs that come with older fixtures: chips down to bare metal, hairline cracks, and the rust spots that bloom under a worn porcelain finish. Each one gets a different fix before any topcoat goes on, which is covered in detail on our chip and crack repair page.

How we work, and why it lasts

The finish is only as good as the prep underneath it. A reglaze that peels or delaminates almost always traces back to a surface that was never properly cleaned, etched or primed — the classic failed-DIY story we get called to redo. We do not cut those corners. Every job runs the same sequence: mask and ventilate the room, deep-clean off body oils and soap film, repair the chips and rust, etch or scuff-sand for adhesion, lay a bonding primer, then spray the acrylic-urethane topcoat in even coats. The fixture cures for 24 to 48 hours before you use it, and we re-caulk fresh at the end. The full breakdown, step by step, is on our process page.

Most jobs are a single visit of three to five hours. We control overspray with proper masking and ventilation so your bathroom is the only thing that smells like fresh paint, and only briefly. The result is a hard, glossy surface with no orange-peel texture — the kind of finish that comes from the right viscosity and the right gun in trained hands, not a rattle can.

Meet Michael Garlikson, lead refinisher

The business runs on one lead refinisher, Michael Garlikson, who has sprayed bathtubs, showers and tile across the East Bay since 2009 and built Oakland Tub & Tile Refinishing around the city's older housing stock. He prepped and shot his first cast-iron tub as an apprentice in a West Oakland flat — a 1920s roll-rim that the landlord was a day away from hauling out — and that job set the direction for everything since. Heritage cast-iron and clawfoot restoration became his signature work: the heavy, well-built fixtures in Oakland's pre-war bungalows and Victorians that no big-box store sells anymore. Alongside that he handles the fiberglass and acrylic repairs that crop up in the city's mid-century apartments — soft floors, crazed gelcoat, stress cracks at the drain — which call for a different read of the surface and a different prep entirely.

The craft itself is spray-applied coatings, and Michael trained on it the way the trade is actually learned: years under an experienced sprayer, dialing in HVLP gun distance, fluid pressure and coat timing on real fixtures until the finish levels glass-smooth with no runs and no orange peel. He keeps current on the two-part acrylic-urethane chemistry he sprays, on the low-VOC product lines that meet California air rules, and on lead-safe handling for the pre-1978 homes that make up much of his work. “On a reglaze, the spray is the easy ten percent,” he says. “The etch, the cleaning, reading whether a substrate will hold a bond — that is the job. I still do the prep and the topcoat by hand on nearly every tub, because the moment you hand that off is the moment a finish starts peeling in year two.”

That hands-on continuity is why the work reads the same from Rockridge to Fruitvale: one set of standards, one trained eye on the viscosity and the gun, and a straight answer when a fixture is past saving. Across the roughly 1,800 tubs Michael has reglazed in Oakland since 2009, fewer than one in fifty — under 1.6% — has ever come back on warranty, which is the number he is proudest of. Michael would rather talk you out of a reglaze that will not hold — a body crack through the porcelain, a rotted floor, a tub better sent back to a re-porcelain shop — than take the money and warranty a failure. When you book, the person quoting your fixture is the person spraying it.

Licensed, insured, and backed in writing

We are fully licensed and insured. That matters more than it sounds: a coating job involves solvents, primers and spray equipment inside your home, and you want the crew carrying real liability coverage if anything goes sideways. Every reglaze we do also carries a 5-year written warranty. If the finish fails from something we did — not from abuse or harsh cleaners — we come back and make it right at no charge. The quote you get is the price you pay, with nothing buried in fine print.

The Oakland homes we work on

Oakland grew up as a streetcar suburb, and it shows in the bathrooms. The pre-1940 Craftsman bungalows and Victorians of Rockridge, Temescal, Crocker Highlands and West Oakland still hold their original cast-iron and porcelain tubs — heavy, well-built fixtures that are far better candidates for reglazing than for replacement, since pulling a cast-iron tub out of a narrow second-floor bath is a demolition project on its own. Around Grand Lake, Lakeshore, Adams Point and Piedmont Avenue we work on a mix of period flats and mid-century apartments, where dense rental stock keeps the turnover work steady. Up in Montclair and the Oakland hills the homes lean newer, with the fiberglass and acrylic units that craze and dull over time.

We cover the flatlands too — Fruitvale, Laurel, Dimond, Glenview, Maxwell Park and the Jack London district near the water — across ZIPs 94601, 94602, 94606, 94609, 94610, 94611, 94618 and 94619. Landlords and property managers running unit turnovers around Adams Point and Fruitvale lean on us for bulk reglazing that fits inside a vacancy window. Knowing the housing stock means we can usually tell you over the phone whether your fixture is cast-iron, steel or fiberglass, and what the finish will take.

Reglaze instead of replace

The math is what brings most people to us. A bathtub reglaze runs $715 to $885; a full tear-out, with demolition, a new tub, plumbing, tile repair and disposal, runs into the thousands and ties up the bathroom for a week or more. Refinishing is one visit, a fraction of the cost, and it keeps a sound fixture — especially an original cast-iron tub that no big-box store sells anymore — right where it belongs. You are paying for the surface, not for a week of contractors. See the full list on our pricing page.

That is the value we have built the business on since 2009: restore what is sound, repair what is damaged, and leave you with a fixture you are glad you kept.