The nitty gritty

It's Thursday! I have always liked Thursdays, they signal the downhill side of the week and you just have to get through Thursday to make it to Friday! This morning I had to think REALLY hard for about five minutes whether today was Wednesday or Thursday. It has just been that kind of week!

Tuesday and last night Mark and I were at the new house working on some preliminary things. We brought Motley over and introduced her to her new yard. She loves it, and she especially loves the mud pit she found to cool herself down. Mark was NOT happy about that, and I just wish I had taken pictures! I'll get some of her over the next few days.

On Tuesday I mopped the kitchen floor and Mark started taking down all of the light and outlet covers in preparation for painting. He also assembled the soaker hoses around the house and sprayed down the front porch at my request.

One of my two evening projects since getting the house has been cleaning the grout on the tiled kitchen floors. I started cleaning them on Tuesday night and I'm about one-third of the way through. This isn't very time consuming, but we have only spent 2-3 hours at the house over the past two nights and we have had family drop by so we weren't working the entire time. I'll break it down for you in case you see yourself doing this in the future.

I knew I wanted to clean the grout on the kitchen when we first toured the house. I am not much of a tile person to begin with, so dirty grout really grosses me out. We don't have the funds or the need right now to replace the floors, so I started researching ways to clean the grout. Here is a photo of before:

this is near the oven and counter area

and this is on the other side of the kitchen, where the breakfast table goes.

You can definitely tell the difference in the grout color. The real color of the grout is closer to the second photo, while the dirty grout is a dark dark brown. Do you understand why I wanted to clean it???

So first, I did what I always do and I researched on Pinterest and through Google. I had seen different remedies for cleaning dirty grout. There is one process that involves using a bleach pen, but I felt like the pen would get gross and it would be the more expensive option. The old fashioned version of this was to mix baking soda with water, let sit on the grout, and brush off after about 5-10 minutes. Here is the link, if you're interested. I've also seen some options that use bleach or peroxide, which might be worth trying. I only finished about 1/3 of the floor, so I'll try the other versions and get back with you!

So this is what my first batch looked like:

I just poured an entire large box of baking soda into a bucket and added enough water and mixed to make it a paste. Then I took a tub brush and spread it onto the dirtiest looking grout. I left it there for about 10-15 minutes just to be safe. 

After it sat for awhile, I poured a little water in the bucket and got my brush wet and then scrubbed HARD along the grout. I then got my mop slightly wet and mopped up the residue into a pile. I scooped that up with a paper towel (a dust pan might work but we didn't have one at the house) and threw it away. Then I kept going over the area with a slightly damp mop to soak up some of the water. After that, I used a bleach cleaner mixed with water and went over it quickly about three different times to get the baking soda residue off the floor.

Here is the result, the clean grout at the top and the dirty grout at the bottom:

Amazing, right? Well, it is to a new homeowner! I'm pleased that a minimal amount of work made such a difference. This only took about one hour of total work, if that. The first thing I saw when I walked into the kitchen was the dirty grout, but once I'm done with the floors our attention will be shifted to the rest of the room.  

What do you think, would you be willing to do this?

I'll chime in tomorrow with my other project that is sure to change the entire house!

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One more thing! Please be sure to check out my Etsy shop! I've added lots of things, tweaked some things, and lowered prices on many of my handmade custom items. I hope you can find something you like and I always welcome your feedback. Thanks so much!!!