When we first moved into our house our kitchen looked a little something like this.
Knowing a full kitchen renovation would cost $$$ we decided to work with what we had, with the idea that 5-10 years down the road we would do the full kitchen renovation (or kitchen renovation 2.0 as we like to call it). A few months after we moved in we started to slowly update our kitchen. We removed a few cabinets above the stove and sink, painted the cabinets, DIYed faux concrete counters, installed new appliances, changed the cabinet hardware, tiled the backsplash, swapped out the light fixtures, and painted the walls. It looks so different – so much brighter and so much more us now, while costing well under what a full kitchen renovation would have been. Yep, I’m sharing a photo from around Christmas, if you can’t tell.
The only thing that we had yet to tackle was the tile. We initially planned to paint it all with a stencil, but I tried that in the laundry room (you can see through the laundry room door in the back of the picture), and ended up painting over it in a warm gray color because the pattern felt too busy for us. We decided that although the actual paint is holding up well on the laundry room floor the painted tile/stenciled tile was not the route we wanted to go. We mulled over replacing tile, but knowing we would probably do a full kitchen renovation down the road ripping up and replacing the floor tile didn’t seem worth it.
The floor tile itself isn’t terrible, it’s just not our style. Our main concern with the tile was the grout. It was never sealed, was coming up in many areas, was severely discolored despite scrubbing it numerous times, and looked dirty all the time. I came across the idea of painting or staining the grout and I figured it was worth a shot! It’s inexpensive – most larger hardware stores sell grout colorant or stain for less than $15 a bottle and it supposedly wouldn’t take a lot of time. I was in!
This post contains affiliate links for your convenience. For more information, see my disclosures here.
Supplies
- Grout Renew (I used the color Snow White – one bottle should be plenty for standard kitchen or bathroom)
- Disposable toothbrush
- Wet rag
- Plastic spoon or small dish (that can be recycled or thrown away)
The Process
Here’s a close up of what our grout looked like before.
For reference the grout is supposed to be a light cream color. Instead, it was dark brown from all of the dirt and nastiness that it absorbed.
Before starting with the Grout Renew it is important your tile is thoroughly cleaned and the grout is wiped free of debris.
Once I ensured my tile was clean and dry I started by working from one end of the kitchen (our garage entry) to the other (our laundry room door) with the Grout Renew.
Look at that difference! As soon as I started I knew this was going to be just what our tile needed to look fresh again.
After some trial and error I found it easiest to pour a small amount of the Grout Renew into a plastic spoon, rather than dumping it straight onto the tile. This way I was able to control the amount I was applying with the toothbrush. Pour the product into the spoon, then dab the toothbrush into the spoon. A little goes a long way. You really don’t need much of this stuff to transform the grout. I worked in sections, essentially went row by row on the tile and applied a small amount at a time with the toothbrush.
Very important: wipe away excess as you go. You will get some of the product on the tiles, but I found as long as I wiped it away with a damp rag as I went (do not let it dry!) it was very manageable. If your rag gets dirty, simply rinse it out as you go. I had to do this multiple times throughout the process.
The whole process took me around 3 hours start to finish simply due to the amount of tile we have (our kitchen has around 250 square feet of tile). Really not too bad! I put on a couple of podcasts and it made the time breeze by.
Plus the end transformation was completely worth it!!
The After
Now all I am regretting is not doing this sooner! It was so easy and makes a huge difference. It makes our entire floor look cleaner. Even when it was clean before it didn’t look clean because of the grout.
Look at that like new, pretty grout!
Plus it is easy to touch up. I haven’t had to do that yet, but I only used a half a bottle of the product for our 250 square foot kitchen so if I need to touch it up in the future I can!
For reference, I completed this transformation right after Thanksgiving, almost 3 months ago. I waited to write the post to see how it held up. These pictures were just taken on Monday so I would say it has held up extremely well!
