About Berkeley Tub Reglazing Studio

Who we are, and why we started in Berkeley

Berkeley Tub Reglazing Studio opened in 2014 to do one thing well: bring tired bathtubs, showers, sinks, countertops and tile back to a clean, glossy finish without ripping them out. It is run by Diego Sanchez, the owner and lead refinisher, who has sprayed tubs in Berkeley since the studio's first year. We are a small, hands-on crew — Diego quotes most jobs himself, then masks them off, sprays them, and signs the warranty. There is no call center and no rotating cast of subcontractors. After more than a decade of work across the city, we have refinished fixtures in flats near campus, hillside homes off Grizzly Peak, and Craftsman bathrooms in Elmwood that still have their original 1920s tubs.

We started here because Berkeley's housing is built for this kind of work. So much of the city's stock is old, well-loved, and worth saving. Tearing out a sound cast-iron tub to chase a glossier look is wasteful and, in a lot of these bathrooms, structurally awkward. Refinishing the fixture you already own keeps the original in place, costs a fraction of replacement, and is done in a day. That fit Berkeley, and it has kept us busy ever since.

Meet Diego Sanchez, lead refinisher

By Diego Sanchez, Owner & Lead Refinisher · Last updated June 2026

Diego Sanchez has been spraying tub finishes in the East Bay since 2014, and he has the kind of count that only comes from doing the work himself — well past a thousand fixtures across Berkeley alone. He came up the practical way, learning spray-applied coatings on the job: how an HVLP gun lays down acrylic-urethane, why viscosity and gun distance decide whether a coat flows level or pebbles into orange peel, and how a porcelain etch behaves differently from a scuff-sand on flexible gelcoat. The fixtures he is known for are the heavy ones — roll-rim and slipper clawfoots in cast iron, built-in enamel tubs in the pre-war flats, the kind of pieces other shops would rather replace than save.

"I can usually read a tub before I touch it," Diego says. "The way the enamel rings when I tap it, where the wear sits at the drain, whether the floor gives underfoot — that tells me what the prep has to be and whether the job is honest to take at all." He does the diagnosing, the masking, the spraying and the warranty sign-off on most jobs, which is deliberate. A reglaze lives or dies on prep, and prep is not something he hands to a stranger.

The ethic he runs the studio on is plain: never spray over a problem you can see. If a fiberglass floor is cracked clean through, or a thin steel tub has rusted to a hole, he says so and points the owner toward replacement instead of selling a finish that fails in a season. He trained in lead-safe handling for the painted exteriors on Berkeley's pre-1978 clawfoots, and he keeps current on the California coating rules the trade actually has to follow. The reputation he wants is the one a refinisher earns slowly: the tub he sprayed eight years ago still looks right.

What we refinish

We refinish more than tubs, though tubs are the bulk of the calendar. The full list covers bathtubs, showers and shower pans, bathroom and kitchen sinks, vanity and kitchen countertops — including cultured marble that has yellowed or etched — and ceramic wall and floor tile. Reglazing, refinishing and resurfacing all describe the same process: bonding a fresh, durable coating to the surface you already have. It is not a liner dropped over the old tub, and it is not a replacement. The fixture stays where it is and comes back looking new.

We handle the substrates Berkeley homes actually have. Porcelain-over-cast-iron and old enameled steel get an acid or silane etch to micro-roughen the glaze so the primer can grip. Fiberglass, gelcoat and acrylic units — the molded surrounds common in 1980s apartment remodels — get scuff-sanded instead, since acid does nothing for them. Chips are filled and feathered flush, hairline cracks are filled and sanded level, and rust spots are ground back to sound metal and sealed before any color goes on. Clawfoot and antique tubs are a specialty; we treat the inside, the rolled rim and the exterior shell as separate problems and finish each one properly.

Our standards on every job

Most of a good reglaze is preparation, not paint. A finish fails when someone sprays over soap film, skips the etch, or skips the bonding primer — that is what causes the delamination and peeling you see in failed DIY jobs. We do not skip those steps. Every tub is deep-cleaned and degreased, etched or scuff-sanded, primed with an adhesion promoter, then sprayed with several thin coats of acrylic-urethane using an HVLP gun in a controlled, masked-off, ventilated work zone. We walk through the full seven-step sequence on our process page, including how we manage overspray and the 24–48 hour cure window. The short version: we earn the warranty in the prep, before the first coat ever lands.

Licensed, insured, and warrantied in writing

Berkeley Tub Reglazing Studio is fully licensed and insured. That matters when a crew is spraying coatings and working with chemicals inside your home — you are not absorbing the risk if something goes wrong. Every refinishing job we do carries a 5-year written warranty against peeling and adhesion failure under normal use. We put it in writing because the warranty is a direct result of the prep, not a marketing line. If a finish we sprayed ever lifts under normal use within those five years, we come back and make it right. We give a firm price before we mask off, so the number you hear on the phone is the number you pay.

The Berkeley homes we work in

Berkeley is full of classic old housing, and that shapes the work. Elmwood, North Berkeley and the Berkeley Hills hold brown-shingle, Craftsman and Victorian homes with original clawfoot and cast-iron tubs that owners want preserved, not replaced — a deep, heavy tub like that is part of the room, and reglazing keeps it. Claremont and Thousand Oaks have the same older porcelain fixtures showing decades of wear. Closer to campus, the student rentals around Southside, Le Conte and the blocks off Telegraph need fast, durable refinishing between leases, where a turnaround in a day matters more than anything. Down in West Berkeley and Westbrae, and in the apartments near the Gourmet Ghetto, we see plenty of 1980s fiberglass and gelcoat surrounds that have gone dull or developed crazing. We have worked across ZIP codes 94702, 94703, 94704, 94705, 94707, 94708, 94709 and 94710, and there is no trip charge inside the city. You can see the full list on our areas served page.

Reglaze instead of replace — what it actually saves

The math is straightforward. A reglaze runs roughly half to a quarter of what a full tear-out-and-replace costs once you add demolition, a new fixture, plumbing, tile repair and disposal — typically a 50–75% saving. A replacement turns a one-room bathroom into a week-long project with walls opened up; a single-fixture reglaze is finished on-site in 3–5 hours, cures in 24–48 hours, and lasts 10–15 years when it is prepped right. For a heavy cast-iron or clawfoot tub, refinishing is also kinder to the floor and the framing than wrestling the old one out. You keep the fixture that fits the room, skip the demolition, and spend less. That trade is why most of our Berkeley customers reglaze. See current numbers on our pricing page.