- Share This Post
- submit
- 3
-
Sparkle (0)
It has recently come to my attention that I have been neglecting the grout in my tile floors. Really, I have always assumed that the slight discolorations here and there were character. Not so, a friend has told me. She has her grout professionally cleaned every six months or so. Unless your grout is white, you don't want to use chlorine bleach as it will discolor the grout, resulting in a mess that is worse than before. Before you begin your scrubbing, you will want to vacuum your floor thoroughly. Then get out your scrub brush. Toothbrushes, which are what most of us scrub small areas with, are too soft. Wire brushes are too stiff and can gouge the grout if you are not extremely careful. Use a regular stiff bristled brush for the job. I researched my options online. Vinegar and water was the first suggestion that I encountered. It proved to be ineffective. Baking soda was next. I made it into a paste and scrubbed with a scrub brush. It worked well, but I am not sure that it worked any better than soap and water. My grout looks fine. It doesn't look as good as new, but it looks perfectly fine. I mean you would not come over to my house and and look down at my floor and gasp with horror. The next thing that I read about was oxygen bleach. I haven't tried it yet, but think the next time I am in my local flooring store I will pick some up. The grout in my mudroom floor is looking like it has seen better days. It would be a good test of the effectiveness of the product. The other interesting tidbit that I ran across while researching was that you shouldn't seal the grout. This goes completely against everything I had always heard or done. Basically the thinking says that if you seal the grout the stains that get through will be even harder to remove because the stain treatment can't penetrate the sealer. Not sure if I buy that or not. Dana, from Here is the House, discovers why you should seal natural tile before you try grouting it. We learned that lesson the hard way also. After grouting our slate floor we realized that we could not get the haze off of the tile. We had to scrub each individual tile with a special cleaner and then seal each tile individually. It was a very time consuming process. When we laid the next set of the tile I sealed them all first, before we even set them. Meredith at House Made, tiled her front steps leading up to her Spanish style bungalow. The results are stunning. Restore House shows the tile they installed rather than the highly coveted, and highly expensive hexagonal floor tile. Turns out that you get what you pay for. The edges of the tile were chipped and it didn't show up until after they were grouted.
And Heather, Oh My Stinkin' Heck, feels exactly the same way about grout as I do. I love her.
