How Not to Clean Your Grout

Before

As I gently slip in my last contact, a tear of solution runs down my face and I reach behind me for the towel only to have it slip onto the floor.  Bending down to pick it up I grimace to see the state of the grout on my tile floors.  We just recently bought a new house that was built in the 30's and unfortunately it looks like the tile and the grout have neither been cleaned nor updated since.  As you can see from the picture on the left it looks as if they used sludge as grout. 

Usually when I'm in the bathroom I don't have my contacts in and hence cannot see the nastiness that I walk across on a regular basis.  This morning, however, I can't help but notice.  Time to do something about that I think to myself.  So I set about in search of a pin on how to easily clean your grout.  Now the pin in question advertises that this is easy and will restore your grout to its original condition with the wave a magic wand so to speak.  No where near the case as I am soon to find out.

I run about gathering up my supplies.  Then I mix the salt, baking soda, and vinegar together in equal parts giggling when it starts to fizz.  That never gets old.  I bet it would make a great science experiment for the kids.  Anyway, initially I start off making a small batch to test in a corner of the bathroom, but after realizing that it needs to soak for twenty minutes, I go ahead and whip up enough to coat the whole floor of the bathroom.  It is part liquid, part salty sludge but I do my best to spread it evenly over the whole floor. 



 

After

Twenty minutes later I come in with the scrub brush and start scrubbing heartily, making sure to get into all the nooks and crannies.  After scrubbing I realize just what a mistake it was to do the whole floor all at once with no way to clean it up.  I tried using a mop, which worked to kind of soak up the liquid part of the solution, but how to get all the salt and crud out from all the nooks and crannies in the grout was beyond me and was not touched upon in the pin.  I ended up using a damp cloth to once again scrub the whole floor and try to get up all the salt.  I eventually gave up after doing the best I could and decided I would vacuum it up later after it all dried out. 

BTW the picture on the left is how it turned out after it was all done.  Not much difference huh?  Yeah I didn't see a difference either, in fact when my niece looked at both pics she actually thought the before picture looked better.  And on top of the fact that it didn't clean anything, I can actually see places where the grout got eaten, that's right, corroded by the salt or baking soda or something.  I hope I don't need to re-grout entirely.  Although on the bright side, there is probably a pin for that and it would probably work a lot better than this one.

Later when I got back home I came back in and amazingly it looked way better.  Wow right?  Wrong, so wrong.  Turns out it looked better because all of the white salt had dried into the grout and made it appear whiter and less dirty.  There was no vacuuming it up as it was caked into all the grooves.  Argghh what a mess.

I've decided after once again scrubbing the floor and wiping it up with a damp towel that I need to now let it dry out again and scrub with a dry brush then vacuum up the salt.  I really don't know if that will work either, but I'm crossing my fingers.  So this post was definitely about how NOT to glean your grout.  Because it doesn't work.  I think the original poster of this pin was playing a nasty joke on everyone.  They are probably laughing it up right now, rolling on the floor with tears coming out of their eyes.  Yeah it was really that bad. 

Gosh I hope I can vacuum that salt up later.  Wish me luck.