A couple of weeks ago, we got new tile laid in two rooms of our house. It was a really exciting day!! Well, as most home improvement projects go it got more and more expensive. In order to save a little money from paying the flooring guys to completely finish the job, we opted to “grout” the floor on our own. Matt quickly was able to do the one smaller room that we got tiled, but our kitchen has sat ungrouted for weeks now. With life, trips, and the need for hours to grout, and hours for the grout to set (without getting walked on) we had yet to finish our floors! For those of you have not had ungrouted floors before, it’s hard to keep clean. There is no way to sweep up dog hair or dirt because it falls right into the cracks. The only way to make the floors feel clean is to vacuum (with the hose off the vacuum)…crack by crack. It is a lil tedious.
Well, my parents graciously offered to keep my boys for 24 hours, and they created a little summer camp experience for them. How amazing are they!?!
Matt said let’s knock out our floors and I was PUMPED!! Yes, I was pumped to spend a kid free evening grouting my floors. 🙂
I had never done it! My husband and awesome father-in-law showed me the ways, and we got to it! All three of us started grouting at different places in the kitchen.
You know it wasn’t bad at all! Grouting can seem tedious and intimidating, but it’s not hard at all! It’s one of those jobs that once you get into it, it doesn’t require much thinking so you can easily talk-and we did!
These are the steps that I did…
1. You simply get a “spatula” full of grout
2. Spread it across a grout line…pressing it in the crack and making sure to fill it evenly
3. You then scrap the access grout off
It’s ok if the grout gets all over your tile! It will wash off later! There is no need to worry about how dirty the tiles look, or how much grout is left on the tile.
Matt was coming behind me with a light wet sponge across my grout lines to have the grout dry “smooth”.
Once all the tile was grouted it was like 10:45pm and I was exhausted. I felt bad leaving my working team, but knowing the next day was going to be a FULL one, I thought it was best if I went to bed. Matt and my awesome father in law decided to clean up a little. I thought they were going to sponge the tiles lightly to get up a little dust, so our sweet kiddos didn’t walk all over the tiles and track dust all over the house the next day.
I got in bed thinking that these two men are real life super heroes. I wish my boys would dress up in costumes of their dad and grandpa because they are the real deal.
The next morning I woke up to this…
They were more than lightly cleaned. They were REALLY cleaned and buffed! I am a blessed girl! Thank you so much Matt and George for all your hard work!! AND I learned how to grout!!
My mind is already spinning on what else I can grout :).
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