Hollywood Refinishing reglazes bathtubs, wall tile and shower surrounds across Los Angeles — cast-iron tubs in Highland Park bungalows, mint 4×4 tile in Valley tract houses, chalky fiberglass units in Palms and Koreatown apartments. Reglazing repairs and re-coats the surface you already own, in place, instead of demolishing it out of the wall.
We work out of 13151 Sherman Way, Unit G-H in North Hollywood and cover the city in both directions from there. California contractor license CSLB #818749. We are
It suits this city for an unglamorous reason: LA housing is old and built in a way that punishes demolition. The median year built in the city is 1965, across roughly 1.44 million housing units.
Older LA bathrooms are tiled the thick-set way: finish tile set over a portland cement mortar bed roughly an inch and a quarter to two inches thick, with metal lath behind it on the wall. Tile in a pre-war LA bathroom is not a skin on a board — it is part of that bed, keyed into lath nailed to the studs. Pull a 1930s tub in Windsor Square or Jefferson Park and the surround tends to come with it, back to bare framing and whatever galvanized pipe is buried there.
The tub fights you too: alcove cast-iron tubs average around 320 pounds. Fine through a ground-floor Craftsman’s back door; a different afternoon on the second floor of a Van Nuys dingbat, where the stair is exterior, narrow, and lands in a carport.
Then compliance. South Coast AQMD Rule 1403 requires that a facility or its components be thoroughly surveyed for the presence of asbestos prior to any demolition or renovation activity, and pre-1978 housing pulls in the federal Renovation, Repair and Painting rule once paid work disturbs painted surfaces. We give no permit advice — confirm anything touching plumbing or structure with the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety. A reglaze sidesteps all of it, because nothing comes out.
Craftsman and California bungalow, roughly 1900 to 1930 — Highland Park, Garvanza, West Adams, Jefferson Park. Hex floor mosaic, 4×4 wall tile with a bullnose cap at chest height, cast-iron tub with a rolled rim. The iron outlives the house; the enamel is what went gray under decades of scouring powder.
Spanish Colonial and Mediterranean Revival, 1910s into the 1930s — Los Feliz, Hancock Park, Silver Lake, the West Adams flats. Where the good tile lives: hand-painted field tile, patterned caps, sometimes a tiled tub apron worth protecting. We mask and refinish around original decorative tile rather than coat over it.
Post-war Valley tract, late 1940s through the 1950s — Van Nuys, Panorama City, Reseda, Sun Valley. Steel tubs, thinner enamel, and color: pink, mint, yellow, seafoam. Color is the most common reason we get called into a Valley house, and a reglaze takes pink to white without disturbing a grout line.
Dingbats and courtyard apartments, 1950s and 1960s — Palms, Mar Vista, Koreatown, La Cienega Heights. The dingbat flourished in Southern California across those two decades: two or three stories, parking tucked underneath, a stack of near-identical units. Identical units mean identical bathrooms, so a building gets scheduled unit by unit as they turn.
1980s onward — Sherman Oaks condos and downtown conversions, usually one-piece fiberglass or acrylic. Those do not rust; they go chalky, they stain, the pan flexes.
Crossing all five eras: LADWP reports hardness from 5.4 to 16.1 grains per gallon (93 to 275 mg/L as calcium carbonate), varying across the city because it draws on several different sources of water. On etched enamel, that is the ring you cannot scrub out.
The bathtub, tile and shower refinishing sequence barely changes: mask, pull drain trim and old caulk, cut out failed grout, fill chips and rust pits, degrease, etch so the coating keys in, spray thin coats. Los Angeles changes everything around it.
Ventilation first. Plenty of pre-war LA bathrooms have one small window over the tub and no exhaust fan — normal construction then, rarely upgraded since in older rental stock. We bring our own extraction.
Then chemistry. OSHA and NIOSH have identified at least fourteen US worker deaths since 2000 related to bathtub refinishing with stripping agents containing methylene chloride; EPA finalized a rule in April 2024 prohibiting all consumer uses and most industrial and commercial uses of methylene chloride, paint and coating removers included. We do not use those strippers — ask any bidder what is in the product going into your bathroom.
Then access and curing. A hillside address in Echo Park or the Hollywood Hills, up a public stairway off a one-lane street, is not a driveway in Cheviot Hills; dingbat carports are usually too low for a van, and street-sweeping and permit-parking districts set what time we can be at the curb. The coating then needs a defined cure before the surface returns to service — that window depends on product and ventilation, and we put it in writing before we start.
About 36% of Los Angeles households own their home, so just under two-thirds of occupied units are rented. The Los Angeles Housing Department counts approximately 624,000 units in about 118,000 properties under the Rent Stabilization Ordinance, which covers rentals built on or before 1 October 1978 — a large, aging stock where the bathroom is original and the unit has to show well without a gut.
Refinishing fits that gap: tub, surround and often the vanity top back to a uniform white in place, with no demolition debris, no demolition-triggered asbestos survey and no wall opened in a 1962 building to find something that stalls the turnover a month. Where eight units share a 1958 bathroom, they share the same tub, tile and failure pattern, so the scope is written once and repeated as units come free.
One caveat outranks the rest. If a wall is soft behind the tile, or the subfloor at the tub apron gives underfoot, a coating hides a leak instead of fixing it — that is a water-damage restoration job first.
Some bathrooms are not worth refinishing, and we would rather say so on the phone than after the masking is up. A steel tub rusted through at the drain is done — a coating bridges a hole, it does not repair one. A fiberglass pan that flexes underfoot has a cracked or unsupported base, and the finish will craze along the flex line. Tile that sounds hollow when tapped has lost its bond to the mortar bed. A previous refinish peeling off in sheets rather than wearing thin means prep was skipped.
And if you are already gutting the room — moving the tub, changing the layout in a Silver Lake remodel — reglaze nothing. Do the demolition once. We do full kitchen and bathroom work too, so that is not self-serving either way.
Bathrooms are rarely the only tired surface in a 1948 house. The same in-place logic drives kitchen cabinet refinishing and cabinet refacing — in older LA kitchens the original solid-wood carcasses are usually better built than what would replace them.
Also worth scoping on the same visit: kitchen refinishing, countertop refinishing when a tile or laminate counter is the last dated thing standing, hardwood floor refinishing for the oak strip floors that keep turning up under carpet in pre-1960 houses, and wood, furniture and antique refinishing for built-ins and doors. The full list of services covers the rest.
Tub, tile surround or a building of turnovers anywhere in Los Angeles — send us photos and the address. The drain, the inside corners and the grout tell us more than any description can.
Hollywood Refinishing is a licensed California contractor, CSLB #818749, working out of 13151 Sherman Way, Unit G-H, North Hollywood. Refinishing is the whole business, not a sideline — cabinets, bathtubs, tile, floors, countertops and furniture. We are 4.9-star rated on Yelp and 5.0 on Google, every estimate is free and on site, and we will tell you when a surface is past refinishing rather than sell you a finish that will not hold.
Almost always. The cast-iron shell in a Highland Park or West Adams bungalow will outlive the house — what failed is the porcelain enamel on top, etched dull by years of abrasive cleaner. Reglazing renews that surface in place, instead of hauling three hundred-odd pounds of iron through a narrow pre-war doorway and demolishing a mortar-set surround to free it. The exception is rust perforation at the drain: a hole is not a surface problem.
Yes, and it is what the Valley calls us about most. The pink, mint, yellow and seafoam tile in Van Nuys, Reseda and Panorama City tract houses was fired that color, so no cleaner will shift it. Tub and tile both refinish to white in place, grout lines included — you keep the original mortar-set tile and lose the era.
That is the standard Koreatown, Palms or East Hollywood pre-war bathroom, and it is why ventilation is what we plan first. We bring our own extraction, and we do not use methylene-chloride strippers: OSHA and NIOSH have identified at least fourteen US worker deaths since 2000 related to bathtub refinishing with stripping agents containing that chemical, and EPA finalized a rule in April 2024 prohibiting most commercial uses of it, including paint and coating removers. Plan to be out of the unit while we spray and through the cure window.
Cleaning matters more than the coating. Abrasive powders and scouring pads do to a new finish exactly what they did to the original enamel. Use a non-abrasive cleaner, do not leave a suction-cup mat sitting wet on the tub floor, and fix a dripping tap before it works on one spot. LADWP puts city water between 5.4 and 16.1 grains per gallon depending on your neighborhood's source, so mineral film builds — wipe it, do not scrub it.
It changes what to check before scoping, not what a reglaze does — nothing is removed and no exterior is touched. Los Angeles City Planning has designated 35 Historic Preservation Overlay Zones; if your block sits in one, take scope questions to City Planning's Office of Historic Resources. For anything involving demolition, plumbing or structure, confirm the requirements with the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety.
Free, on-site estimates across Los Angeles and the wider Los Angeles area.
Hollywood Refinishing is your trusted remodeling partner ready to help you create a unique and impeccable home!
13151 Sherman Way Unit G-H North Hollywood, CA 91605
818-988-4240