Grouted

Behold, missing and old grout. Not waterproof.

Last weekend I had a grand grout plan. Optimistically, I hoped to clean and score the grout Friday night, grout it Saturday, and paint the floor and seal the walls Sunday. Some of that happened.

Friday went fine, more or less. I scored the wall grout and scrubbed and “brightened” the floor grout. The brightener didn’t really seem to do anything except stink up the room (I wore a ventilator), but we had anticipated painting it white again, anyway. But it was worth a shot, and it needed a good cleaning.

Saturday morning came and I merrily got around to mixing the grout around 9 a.m. The mix seemed a little too runny, so I added more powder and got to work. Although I had a float, I found it easier to push the grout in with my gloves fingers and used the float more was a scoop and scraper. This wasn't too bad. Not exactly a frolicky Saturday morning, but I could think of worse things to do. It’s the timing of things that trips me up.

I had written the timing of steps down. At first, I found that I was wiping too soon with the rinse sponge after finishing a small area. So then I would go a little longer and bigger with the next section. But then it felt like I was playing catch-up by the time I was wiping down the tile. And as time went by, the mix in the bucket was thickening up. My first wall was pretty decent for a rookie, but the third wall was definitely not my best work, plus I was getting tired. Looking back, I should've sucked it up and made a fresh batch of grout instead of trying to use up what was in the bucket.

Left wall untouched, right wall in progress.

Just as all the grouters before me, I had two buckets of water on hand for my grout rinsing sponge. One would be the clean bucket, the other the “dirty bucket.” Of course, each got dirty fast, so there were many trips to the sink. I think Half my time was spent doing that. Just when I thought I’d gotten all the haze, it’d come back … and back … and back. At this point, I was worried that we were hurting the grout that was supposed to be drying.

Along with that, our tile is beveled, so we do not have a sharp, clear edge while wiping off excess grout. When Mike got home, he took a plastic putty knife to the bevel, scraping off the overly thick areas of grout. Sometimes more than the excess stuff came off. Not a fun way to spend your Saturday.

On Sunday, I grabbed haze remover and grout paint for the shower floor. Originally, it looked like the floor grout just needed a good scrubbing and touch up with paint (since the cleaner didn't brighten like it claimed it would). But as I set to painting the grid, my stomach sank. Much of the grout had eroded away, so my paint brush was disappearing between the tile.

“Honey, I've got bad news …”

So, I walked away for a couple of days. Once I'd cooled off, I used painter's tape over the drain to make sure I didn't send wet grout down the drain. When I mixed the new grout, yet another thing went wrong. I added too much water off the bat. The next hour was basically spent adding some more powder, stirring, letting it sit … then adding some more, repeat, repeat, repeat. The mixture I finally started spreading around was definitely more watery than the original batch, but I was getting fed up. So, I let it sit longer between scrapes and rinses, and it seemed to work. As soon as I thought I was done laying grout, I pulled up the tape.

Hazy, grouted shower floor. 

Then I caulked the corners and painted some lines that didn't need re-grouting, just some sprucing. In the photo, you can see the ick on the right that has been resistant to anything we throw at it. Looks like the next option is simply taking a blade to it. Fun!

So here I sit, exactly one week from when I started. The first coat of sealer is on, the window open and fan running (and furnace running, since it hasn't warmed up yet). The second coat is waiting in the wings. I got lazy and bought the spray sealer, which is very stinky and comes with big warning labels about using a ventilator when applying. Which I did! I'm very anti-nasty chemicals, which drives Mike nuts, but in this case, I took the simple route and proper precautions.

What's next? Oh, spray painting some cabinet pulls!