Sealing gap between marble tiles and GWB

Hi All.

Have moved into an apartment in a city condo with concrete slab floors. Basically soild, nice.

The bathroom per the previous owner's installation has a marble shower stall, floor and baseboards -- all the same marble. The rest walls are painted white. I need to repaint and while I'm at it, I should address the fill/seal between the marble baseboard and the GWB. It seems to be a mix of caulk and grout and its a mess: it forms a kind of trough that collects dust and has come to look grubby (see photo).



What would be a standard way to fill/seal the gap between the marble baseboard and the GWB? I'm guessing I would paint the GWB first then fill the gap, but I'm willing to hear different.

Thanks all,

 

what's GWB

I normally use a paintable caulk between the tile and drywall/plaster. I do the caulking as part of the prep and then paint it along with the wall. Another option would be to buy caulk that matches the grout which might be best to apply after painting. You could also use the same caulk to fix any tile corners that have cracks.

 

I think he means Gypsum Wall Board

 

Yes Gypsum Wall Board - drywall i.e. generic sheetrock. Used to seeing GWB on plans because shorter, i guess.

Thanks for the advice -- basically caulk not grout between the tile and the wall board, great, thanks. I like the idea of caulking first and painting over the caulk for a uniform look.

Any tip for tools to remove the existing caulk so as to minimize damage to the wall board?

Thanks,

 

Usually cutting the bond between the caulk and the drywall along with careful peeling/scraping works decent with little/no damage. Drywall isn't difficult to repair if you mess up.

 

Thanks. My intuition says that the ideal tool for the cutting would be something flexible to bend against the wallboard so the blade becomes flush with the face of the wallboard, making it less likely to gouge into it. What would you use, ideally?

 

I normally use a utility knife to make the cut and my putty knife to peel the caulk loose.

 

Gottit. Tks again. Getting to work now.