Bathroom remodel question

[Mermaid]

Boy, am I slow on the uptake. Futurebeachbum, I couldn't figure out who Miss Kitty knew that I didn't know and who the heck were you! And then it clicked--I'm so used to thinking of you as "gotothebeachdad."

Anyway, when you're at the condo fixing up the bathroom, you are more than welcome to stroll down to our condo and take a peek at what we've done. Our resident manager will let you in whenever you ask.

 

[Paula]

Any ideas for how to clean old white grout? We have old tiles and grout in our home in Michigan and would like to not change them because they go well enough with age of the house and we don't want to spend the $. But the grout on the floor and wall tiles is now quite dark and we don't know how to clean it without taking it out and redoing the group. Any quick fix for old grout to make it look clean again? Thanks.

 

[Miss Kitty]

Any ideas for how to clean old white grout? We have old tiles and grout in our home in Michigan and would like to not change them because they go well enough with age of the house and we don't want to spend the $. But the grout on the floor and wall tiles is now quite dark and we don't know how to clean it without taking it out and redoing the group. Any quick fix for old grout to make it look clean again? Thanks.

What about those Bleach pens?

 

[Paula]

What about those Bleach pens?

Tried it and it didn't work great, but I also didn't try very hard so thanks for reminding me to try again with more effort. This is old grout and I thought maybe renovators had a special product they use. I quickly looked at that gardenweb discussion site and it looks wonderful. I will be surfing that as well with spring coming (well, that is 2-3 months away for us in Michigan).

 

[TooFarTampa]

Tried it and it didn't work great, but I also didn't try very hard so thanks for reminding me to try again with more effort. This is old grout and I thought maybe renovators had a special product they use. I quickly looked at that gardenweb discussion site and it looks wonderful. I will be surfing that as well with spring coming (well, that is 2-3 months away for us in Michigan).

Gardenweb rocks. Paula I have a few ideas for you. But I have to run and will be back this afternoon.

 

[futurebeachbum]

Tried it and it didn't work great, but I also didn't try very hard so thanks for reminding me to try again with more effort. This is old grout and I thought maybe renovators had a special product they use.

I normally clean ours by just (carefully) pouring straight undiluted bleach on it and letting it soak a few moments. Then I go over it with a brush and mop it up. It may take several applications over time to bleach everything out.

As an aside, here's another bleach trick a painter turned me onto. If you have brown-ish spots on a white ceiling from a water leak, you can avoid repainting by wiping it down with bleach. Again it may take a couple of applications, but it really works.

You need to be careful when dealing with bleach, but it does wonders.

 

[TooFarTampa]

OK, thoughts for dealing with yucky white grout. (BTDT)

1) Futurebeachbum has a good suggestion. If it is yucky but not too yucky I use Clorox Clean up (gel if you can find it, otherwise spray) and a good stiff bristle brush. Detergent plus bleach can work wonders. IF you can get it satisfactorally white, then seal it with AquaMix's Sealers Choice Gold or 511 Porous Plus. :clap_1: Several coats until you are done.

2) If you can't get it white and you really want it white, then consider using one of those grout paints from the Brookstone catalog. I think they are some sort of epoxy paint. You MUST prep the grout exactly as instructed first, but if you do it right it will last a long time. I used it over dark yucky OLD grout in a bathroom in our first home and it turned out great, and was still looking great 3 years later when we sold it. Tedious but worth it if you don't have mosaic tile.

3) Finally, consider a grout colorant. In our beach house bathrooms we have white hex tile. The very optimistic (or careless) builders used white grout. :bicycle: :nono1:

After awhile of course it was not cleanable, so the only solution was to color it with a more traditional medium grey. I got all my (high quality) supplies from Lowes. To do it quickly on hex tile I followed some instructions by the guys at the John Bridge Tile forum, which is the best. I've done two of the three bathrooms and they look great! Next time up I'll do the master bathroom, which is bigger so it will take longer.

One good thing about the colorant, in addition to the fact that it evens the grout color and makes it look "clean," is that it also is a sealer so you don't have to worry about doing it ever again!

 

[Paula]

Thank you TooFarTampa.

I will give some of the suggestions a try. I don't think the bleach pen will be enough of a solution (but thanks for the suggestion Sueshore), but I'm looking for a small project (it's the middle of winter...) so I'm willing to try some of the more ambitious suggestions. I'll just put on some music, work on the grout, get a new shower curtain and maybe fixtures. We have to paint the walls, too, because I had them painted peptobismol (sp?) pink when we moved in. What was I thinking -- I thought it was a light "clay" color.

 

[Sandcastle]

Any ideas for how to clean old white grout? We have old tiles and grout in our home in Michigan and would like to not change them because they go well enough with age of the house and we don't want to spend the $. But the grout on the floor and wall tiles is now quite dark and we don't know how to clean it without taking it out and redoing the group. Any quick fix for old grout to make it look clean again? Thanks.

I'll tell you what worked well on our white grout in Tallahassee, but it's a messy job. First, I sprayed the grout liberly with Oxi Clean Laundry Stain Remover. Then I bruished the grout line with a small laundry brush. After that, I blasted it with a small hand-held steam cleaner (I used a "Shark" that I bought at Bed Bath & Beyond). The steam blew the dirt right to the surface. Then I wiped up the mess with slightly damp bath towel. You just have to do one small section at a time -- we have a LOT of tile.

My wife kept rinsing the old towels and passing clean ones to me. I found that sitting on a low foot stool was more comfortable than using knee pads or sitting on the cold floor. This was a slow, miserable job, but the end result was pretty good.

Be sure to use Oxi Clean Laundry Stain Remover (in the small blue spray bottle). The other Oxi Clean products didn't work nearly as well.

Good luck!

 

[Paula]

I'll tell you what worked well on our white grout in Tallahassee, but it's a messy job. First, I sprayed the grout liberly with Oxi Clean Laundry Stain Remover. Then I bruished the grout line with a small laundry brush. After that, I blasted it with a small hand-held steam cleaner (I used a "Shark" that I bought at Bed Bath & Beyond). The steam blew the dirt right to the surface. Then I wiped up the mess with slightly damp bath towel. You just have to do one small section at a time -- we have a LOT of tile.

My wife kept rinsing the old towels and passing clean ones to me. I found that sitting on a low foot stool was more comfortable than using knee pads or sitting on the cold floor. This was a slow, miserable job, but the end result was pretty good.

Be sure to use Oxi Clean Laundry Stain Remover (in the small blue spray bottle). The other Oxi Clean products didn't work nearly as well.

Good luck!

Thanks Sandcastle People who have dealt with this old dirty grout problem know how unsolvable the problem can seem and how gloomy it can look. I have all that stuff you mentioned around the house anyway (love the oxiclean stain remover and the steamer in general) so I'll try that before buying the other stuff recommended. This board is so helpful. Ideally, I won't need to worry about this kind of cleaning in our cottages in SoWal for many years. The most annoying cleaning I do at the cottages is bleaching the white porch wood about twice a year because of the mold that can build up (and I already have that figured out from another thread).