The Nightmare of Re-grouting Our 1950’s Tile

This was a painful experience, and I am glad that it is over. Even writing about it was difficult. Douglas has added his comments in italics.

It is embarrassing to admit what the grout in our bathroom has looked like for the past couple of years. In February of 2013 I created a project list that included this picture. Despite much scrubbing and bleaching, I could not get that grout to look clean. I knew that we needed to re-grout, but I kept putting off the job for later. (I really liked the look, it grew on me…)

Last January, I included re-grouting the bathroom in our goals for the New Year, but once again I procrastinated as long as I possibly could. (I really tried to not push her along on this one).

Finally on August 19 I started scraping. I started on the shower wall because that was where the grout was in the worst condition. I figured that if the wall behind the grout was compromised anywhere, it had to be there. I preferred that tiles start falling out immediately if they were going to fall out at all.

The good news is that no tiles fell out (but one is barely hanging in there. I knew about that one though from when we replaced the old leaking faucet with caused some deterioration around it). The bad news is that I was not having very much luck getting the grout to fall out either. Despite the fact that it had been popping out on its own for a while now, once I wanted it to come off the wall, it staunchly refused. When Douglas arrived home, I had been scraping for a couple of hours and had only succeeded in creating a few smallish grooves dotted with what appeared to be pinholes. (another look I was quite happy to keep…)

Douglas implored me to cease my futile efforts and promised to procure a Dremel Tool to aid in our endeavor. True to his word, the next day he came home with the Dremel lent to us by a good friend. She even had the grout attachment. We then had everything we needed except motivation and time.

The weekend of August 23-24, we had our yard sale and there was no time (I also had to work the 23rd, and had committed to coaching a tri clinic the 24th.). During the week of August 25, I had meetings and did not feel like tackling this chore when I got home. Douglas did not work on it either (I was putting long hard hours in at work, and literally doing the job of two because my assistant had quite previous week). Therefore, we successfully procrastinated until the weekend of August 30-31 before the work recommenced.

I must preface this next part by saying that Douglas found out on Friday, August 29 that he had missed the deadline to register for Ironman next year (It said 12am August 29th, which I read as midnight the 29th, but in fact it is midnight the 28th. Easy mistake to make, and costly. That was a $750 registration fee). He was devastated and talked about quitting triathlons all together. He was suffering an identity crisis and feeling pretty badly about himself. I was sad for him but incapable of doing anything to help him. That Friday had been a great day for me up until he came home with that news, but after that my heart was hurting for him. This was the mindset with which we began working on Saturday morning.

Rather quickly, Douglas burned through the first grout attachment. The grout lines were so thin that the tool was having trouble getting through. He took off to the hardware store to see if there was a thinner attachment that we could buy. I continued scraping by hand.

When he returned, he informed me that there were no thinner attachments. The guys at the hardware store told him that we should re-tile the wall or just paint the grout. I tried to point out that a) we do not have the money to re-tile the wall and b) there were holes in the grout even before I had started scraping it, so painting it did not seem to be an option. (I tried to convince her to just grout those spots, then paint.)

Douglas was not in the mindset to listen. He accused me of never considering options other than the one that I had already chosen. Our discussion quickly escalated to an uncomfortable level. In the end, we decided to continue on with the removal of the grout but decided to focus on only one and a half walls. However, at this point, I was hurt that Douglas had attacked me personally. I tried to tell myself that his reaction had more to do with his disappointment over the loss of his race, but I was really upset.

I decided to try using a box cutter to scrape the narrowest grout lines. I was unable to find the box cutter in the mess that was in the workshop section of the basement. I have been working for months to clean and organize the basement, but the workshop is the one area that I have not touched. Originally, Douglas promised me that he was going to clean and organize the entire basement, but when he failed to get around to it for two years, I stepped in and started the process. However, I left the workshop for him. It was a mess. There are no pictures of any of this. We were depressed and not in a picture taking mood. (I was going to keep my promise, I just never gave her my expected start and complete dates. It was a government job…)

I may not have used the best tone when I expressed to Douglas my frustration with the condition of the workshop and my inability to find the box cutter. He blamed it on me, and I exploded. This was the point when I dumped a bag of shredded paper all over the workshop and stormed upstairs to pack my bag and go to my mother’s house.

By the time everything was packed, I had cooled down enough to admit that I did not want to leave. I went back to scraping for a while before going down to apologize to Douglas. We made up, but he remained downstairs to clean the mess that I had created down there, and I was on my own to finish scraping. I thoroughly regretted my temper at that point. To top off the night I had several pieces of grout force themselves under my skin and had to remove them with tweezers. It was a painful night in more ways than one.

On Sunday, we finished removing the grout on the wall and a half that we had agreed to work on. I used the box cutter on the thinnest grout lines while Douglas worked on the thicker ones with the Dremel. He had figured out that without the plastic guide the tool worked better on our narrowly set tile. After several hours we finished. (Without the guide I was able to keep from getting in too tightly in the narrow areas and grinding against the tile. It took the grout out easily, but the tile was too much for it.)

There are no pictures of us working because we were to miserable to take any, but I did take some pictures the next morning of the groutless tiles. You can see in these pictures how close the tiles are. There are some that are literally touching. That is literally used correctly – there is no space between them.

On Monday, September 1, we were in a better mood. We began applying the new grout, celebrating Labor Day by laboring. We had decided several months ago to use black grout in the bathroom as well as the kitchen. After deciding that we were not going to re-grout all of the tiles at the same time, we debated whether we should use white instead. We decided that since the old grout no longer looks white anyway, the newly re-grouted walls would not match the other walls no matter if we used white or black grout. (If she would have listened to me and left the grout alone in first place, it would have turned black on its own soon enough…) Douglas mixed it up, and we put it on quickly. This was the only step of the project that went off without a hitch.

It was a messy job, but the smartest thing I did was use painters tape to keep a straight line between the wall we were working on and the one that we did not do. (A straighter line than any of the tiles or walls…)

After letting it set for half an hour, we tried wiping it down with sponges. We may have left it set for a little too long, because it was not coming off easily. In the end, I had to use a Scotch Brite scouring pad to get the grout off the tiles. We only had one, so the job fell to me. Douglas cheered me on from the sidelines and brought me beverages which he helped me drink since my hands were a mess.

This part was even messier than the last.

It took me several hours, and my arms were aching when I finished. The upside was that the walls looked great. Douglas cleaned up the mess in the bathroom.

This weekend, I finished the sealing and caulking, but the rest of the story will have to be told another day. I just realized that I forgot to take pictures of the bathroom with its black grout. I will take some and put them in the next post. (and I will work on getting her to let me paint the remaining grout black…)

Happy Homemaking!