Tile Do Over

When we first moved into our home, the kitchen floor was ugly at best. Well truth be told the whole darn kitchen was UGLY and dark and gloomy. Michael had promised me that if we bought this house he would start immediately on redoing the kitchen. We bought the house and he did start a kitchen makeover. We are still working on finishing the project. I would say the kitchen project is about 80% complete. We originally put laminate wood floor in our kitchen. I loved the look of it, but I HATED keeping it clean. Anytime a child or dog or myself got a glass of water, the floor got spots. Trying to keep the floor clean was a nightmare. Michael was good enough to let me change my mind. He took up that floor and used it in two of our bedrooms so we didn't waste it. He then laid tile in our kitchen. I am not a fan of tile floors, but they are much easier to keep clean. They are growing on me! When he laid the tile, he chose to use a biscuit color grout. I suggested going with a darker grout, but we both were concerned that it wouldn't look right because our kitchen area is so large. After a year of being on the floor, our grout ALWAYS looked dirty. Here is a picture of the tile just after I mopped it..


So when Michael was at work one day, I decided that I HATED grungy looking grout. I took myself to Lowe's and found something to turn the grout a different color. After asking him once to remove an entire kitchen floor that he just put down a year ago, I sure hated to ask him to drill all the grout out and redo it. I was afraid that I might push him over the edge!!! I bought 2 bottles of grout cover seal. I spent many hours working on the grout.


And this is the results. Its not perfect, but it sure is better than grungy. The funny part is that we both like the look of the darker grout better than we did the look of the lighter grout even when it was brand new!

It was a cheap fix to a kitchen make over mistake. I wish we had chosen the darker grout when he first put it down, but since we made the mistake we found a way to make it work. After seeing the darker grout, he did mention that he could use a dremel tool and bust out the grout in between each tile. He could then change the grout to the darker color. I smiled and told him I would rather the other 20% of the kitchen make over get completed first and then we could talk!!!

grace and peace,

julie