Gross Grout No More

We spoiled ourselves in our last house with beautiful, hand scraped hickory floors. We really disliked the ceramic tile with dark grout in this house and knew ripping them out would be in our future. Not to mention, the floor boards underneath the tile are bowing which caused noticeable valleys in the floor. All new flooring would be a very big project for us and we aren't ready to take this on for a few years.

During one of our walk-thrus, we noticed that the grout in the coat closet was practically white. We wondered if they tried painting it or cleaning it in this small space. After further investigation, we discovered that the grout in the whole kitchen used to be a cream/light gray color.

First thought: That's disgusting! Did these people ever clean? That must be years of caked on dirt. Gross!
Second thought: How can we get this clean again??

I think if the grout was light and not as noticeable, I could definitely live with it longer. During moving weekend, my mom and I scrubbed a small bathroom upstairs with Soft Scrub and a toothbrush. It took forever and we had a headache from the chemicals. I couldn't imagine doing this in our 300+ sq ft kitchen.

After doing some research and calling around, we decided to have Teasdale Fenton (a local carpet cleaning company), come check out our space and give us a quote. They did a test area in the kitchen to see how clean they could get it. Look closely at the center of this picture.

Umm, yes please! That is like night and day. They sprayed a cleaning product on the surface, scrubbed all the grout lines with a wire brush, then used a buffer type power washer with hot water and steam to clean it up. It was amazing to watch the transformation. They did our kitchen, laundry room and two upstairs bathrooms. From start to finish it only took an hour and a half!

iphone picture-- poor quality, but wanted to show you the buffer (and all the dirt, ick!)

It definitely wasn't cheap, but this was something we couldn't really diy. I loved that it not only deep cleaned the grout, but the tiles too. I can now walk around the house without my socks turning black. They wanted to charge an additional $1 per square foot to seal it, but we choose to do that on our own. We bought a $30 bottle of sealer at Home Depot and a tool to apply it, which saved us hundreds.

I'd say this was a huge success! We had great spring weather this weekend which allowed us to get some yardwork done, trim some bushes, begin to organize the garage and some other misc. projects. What did you accomplish this weekend? 

xo, Erin