Ok, so I'm not the best at keeping up with this...
ANYWAYS
The final task in my bathroom re-vamp was the ugly-ass grout. It resembled more or less dried, cracked vomit mixed with diarrhea. It had mysterious stains on it. The woman who lived in this condo before me was definitely disgusting (damn chain smokers!), so who knows what bacteria and substances were there.
YUCK.
Step 1: REMOVE GROUT
This was a biddy and a half. If you had your typical 12" x 12" tiles, you would only have a small amount of grout to get rid of. But these are about 1"x 1". I went to Lowe's and got a grout remover tool... they were all out of nicer ones, so I bought two economy ones. I'm glad I got two.
It was surprisingly easy to dig up the grout, however, I lost a solid few layers of skin on my thumbs. OW.
As you can see, you don't have to take out ALL the grout, just enough so you can fill in the grooves.
Step 2: MAKE NEW GROUT
Pretty easy. Add water and mix with one of those giant egg-beater-esque tools for your power drill (I borrowed Dad's...) until it looks like mashed potatoes.
Step 3: SMUSH IN NEW GROUT
AY DIOS MIO what a satisfying step. If you find satisfaction in watching:
- lawns get mowed
- windows get cleaned
- backs get waxed
- walls get painted
...then you will like this. It's so satisfying! Just take a blob and smush it in! And then scrape off the excess.
Step 4: WAIT
Step 5: INITIAL CLEAN
This was hard, given the fact that the tiles were so tiny and everything was still wet. Regardless, you had to have a slightly damp flat sponge and wipe off the excess grout on the tiles, without wetting or removing the grout in the grout lines. Again, this would have been easier if I had larger tiles.
Step 6: CLEANNNNN
This is where I screwed up. Thankfully, I called my darling friend Cait who let me know that once grout dries, it's there for good. I was thinking I could get scrape off any leftover grout the next day with a scrubber, but I was told otherwise. Currently, my floor looked like this:
As you can clearly see, there's still a ton of grout where there shouldn't be grout. OOPS. I went in a few more times and did the best I could, until I got it to this:
Not perfect, but better. Cait was right... once it dries, it is a BIDDY to get off.
Case and point: edges. I majorly F-ed up here.
(as well as some other edges...)
THINGS I LEARNED:
- removing grout is easy but it hurts
- applying grout is soothing
- GET THAT DAMN EXCESS GROUT OFF ASAP
- next time, go with larger tiles.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
All in all, my floor looks wayyyyyy better than before, but next time, I should plan to do it neater.
Adios, muchachos.
-Chrissy
