Googly eyed over grout

When choosing tile, did you look at the samples in the store and just go with the grout color they used? We did. We saw our beautiful tile for our floors...our shower and feel in love with the whole look. So we went with "Bone" for the grout because that is what they used in their sample wall and it just made sense (at the time). Over time the grout looked dirty in areas. I googled how to clean grout and got a handful of suggestions. I tried a few...bleach and water mixture...oxy bleach and nothing worked. NADA!

So, then I googled, "if you could dye grout" and this product came up:


I was nervous...

I knew if I didn't like it I was sunk and would have to continue with it because digging out the grout was not an option. That would mean hubby would have to get involved and he wasn't having it.

Sink or swim I was going all in.

















Our original color was suppose to be bone and I say, "suppose to be" because it actually looked more like "snow white." My first choice was "Delorean Gray" but it looked too gray, so I went with "Natural Gray," BIG mistake. Natural Gray looked more black when I put it on. So I went back to Home Depot and got, "Delorean Gray," "Platinum" and another color like "Chateau" but I cannot remember the name. Platinum was very light and a silvery color, the one I cannot remember was more brown than taupe. Delorean Gray it was. It was originally my first choice...always go with your first choice...don't second guess. WE LOVE IT...even hubby does. YAY!

I spent the $4.97 for this tool

You can use it for the grout dye or sealing the grout. Personally...I did not like it for using the dye. I squeezed out the color until the wheel was full and started in the middle of the grout and moved it back and forth, being that grout is not smooth, it would skip areas and then hit a pit in the grout and go on the tile. 

So I thought that even though taping around tiles would be time consuming I decided that if it worked it would be worth it. I taped off only a few tiles to try but the dye kept going under the tape and again it was all over the tile.

My third attempt and the one I used was good old fashion using a wet rag. It went much faster and still gave me nice finished lines.

These were not the exact brushes I used but basically I put the dye on with a brush similar to #4 and after the whole floor was done, I went over to do touch up using a brush like #1. If I would have had an angled brush like #6 I probably would have chosen that one instead of #4, but you use what you have.

Here are two views of the old (bottom) and the new (top)

A view looking the other direction.

Close up of the new

Finished floor.

It was not hard to do and I did sections at a time. You are suppose to wait 2-4 hours to walk on ( I would take an hour in the morning to work on it so by night time we were OK) and 24 hours before cleaning.

Now the test will see how it stands up to time.

Would I do it again...absolutely, but I would suggest always using a darker colored grout to begin with...what were we thinking.