Anybody have experience in painting bathroom tile? Is is even possible?

I'm referring to 50s bathroom tile that is beyond cute and kitchy but just plain ugly...

Yes you can. I was just in the home depot and they have new paints now that can be used over ceramic and vinyl tiles. You can even paint your bathtub now with a porcelain resurfacer paint. I don't know what these paints are called, but the Home Depot guys should be able to tell you. You can actually paint ceramic tile with regular paint as long as you sand the surface down to rough it up and then apply a really good primer sealer, but the effect is not as nice as the ceramic paints.

They even have these tile transfers now that you just wet with water, stick to the wall, and peel off in a couple of hours and it will leave a colored pattern permanently on the ceramic. You can tattoo your toilet!

I just think the Home Depot is paradise on earth.

Oh, you can etch ceramic and porcelain! that's at the home depot too! I'm sounding like a home depot commercial!

we have a rental, and the previous owners painted all over the olive green tiles and the porcelein sink in the kitchen. It looked really nice when we bought the house, but after a while, the paint chips and flakes off. It looked really crappy after awhile (especially the sink. it looked horrid.), and we ended up ripping out the tiling and putting in new ones.

would painting the bathroom walls make the tiles look less tacky? or maybe make the entire bathroom retro looking by matching it all to the tiles? a lot of the cute retro stuff only looks cute because it matches the rest of the room, so maybe it isn't that bad...

We have GROSS looking tiles (they are clean and neat, but just ugly mustard swirly things) SO we hang a lot of art and decorations in the bathroom and that kind of disguises it.