If Cleaning Your Grout Doesn't Work. Try This
Like many of you, I've tried every trick to get my grout to look clean. I clean my floors, I've bleached my floors, I've bleached my grout........a week later it looks like it has been dirty for a century. I've gone through countless toothbrushes, even wire brushes, trying to clean the grout. It's hard work.
After trying method after method I was actually getting ready to re-grout my entire kitchen. If you haven't done that before...it's a beast of a job.
One day while in Home Depot I found a little bottle that said Grout ReNew. What? New grout in a bottle? For $14.00 I had to give it a try. I've mentioned it in a couple of answers to people posting how to get their grout clean but I decided to post the entire project.
I've wasted more than $14 buying all of the items needed to try this trick or that one, so what is one more trick.
I started in my kitchen. I did this over 6 months ago since I wanted to see what would happen with regular wear and tear. And that room gets worn and torn. Ha ha.
My kitchen still looks great. I use a steam mop on it regularly so it's been getting steam, dropped water, dropped food, anything that can fall, does in my kitchen.
I know this is not all natural but sometimes, you have to resort to the chemical solution to get the results you want.
It comes in many colors. Some of my grout was really badly stained and it worked. It even covered up where the prior owner spilled red nail polish and just wiped it into the grout.
yep that's all it takes. A brush, the grout ReNew, a small container for the poly blend and stained grout.
First thing I did was a good thorough cleaning of the floor. My go to is bleach and water but you can use what ever your favorite cleaner is as long as it doesn't have any type of coating. Like something to make your floors shiny.
Also, this has no odor. I'm very sensitive to smell and I can work with this in the early AM to late PM and not have any residual smell.
It may look like my grout is a perfect match with the darker color of my tile but it's not supposed to be that color.
If you can dip a paint brush and follow the grout line, you can do this job. It is time consuming since the product is like paint and will dry as you are working. It doesn't dry fast but you certainly don't want to pour out the entire container in one dish. I worked with about an ounce at a time and I was able to cover a lot of tile in an hour. Trust me, after an hour, you are going to want to get up and walk around a bit.
you can see just in this photo, the color difference.
I do keep a towel with me so if I get the product on the tile I can just wipe it up as I'm going.
Here is the finished project. It's clean!!!
I can clean my brush with soap and water. Once the product dries it becomes water proof. It is also antimicrobial.
Comments
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We used this same brand in black. What a huge mess, it's done now but I would not use this again. It would have been less mess to RE-TILE the whole thing.
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Not sure I would have been so brave to use black. I used a small brush and still had to be careful. Sorry it didn't turn out the way you wanted.
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Looks so much better!!! I used the same product in Snow White color on two bathroom floors. Both with 1/4 inch grout. One bathroom had 2 inch tiles with ugly tan grout. it took many, many hours to complete. The other bathroom has 12 inch tiles and had dingy white grout, which went much faster. I did two coats on both floors. I had to scrape some tiles after the coating dried but it was really worth the effort. It's been about three years and is holding up well although it might need another coat in the high traffic areas. I used a cap with a tip to squeeze the paint on the grout lines, then a brush to spread it.
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That looks great!!!! So glad you gave it a try. Thanks for posting the photos.
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Frequently asked questions
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So, is this essentially painting a fresh, bright line over the old, stained grout? Thanks
Do you need to seal it after painting it?
So you just paint it on,you. don't rinse with water after your done?