I always liked this bathroom. I especially liked the paint color they chose. But it needed to be refreshed. Badly. And I hate cleaning bathrooms. Sure I did the basic cleaning like scrubbing and sanitizing but it just wasn't cutting it. Finally I decided that this bathroom needed a face lift. The paint, although I love it, has been stained and chipping. It also needed a fresh coat of white paint on the ceiling, doors and trim. But first- We needed to start with the shower.
Although I used all sorts of shower cleaners I couldn't get the grout clean. And I kept putting off re grouting. I shouldn't have but I did.
It's embarrassing but I'm putting it out there. So we finally got to work on re grouting the shower. First we took everything out of the shower and took down the curtain. Then I did a quick wipe down of the tiles and then covered the drain with a drop cloth and painters tape to prevent the dust from going down the drain.
After we did some research on the best way to remove unsanded grout (smooth) , Tim went and bought a Dremel and then he bought a 1/16th bit to take our grout out. We could use the dremel for other projects so we didn't mind the investment. After everything was cleared out we began to remove it all. Line. By. Line.
Some tips we learned and want to share for everyone since this is our first time doing this:
1) Make sure you wear a face mask and protective goggles. It gets really dusty real quick and you do not want to inhale any of it in. Moms everywhere will thank me for recommending it.
2) Allow yourself some time. It took a lot of time and precision. Tim was such a trooper and did all of this work. It took him hours to do each wall since it is tiled from the ceiling to the floor. It also took awhile since we never did it before and the gap was so small between the tiles.
3) Vacuum between walls. This is in correlation with the first tip. It gets really dusty and hard to see what lines you just did so vacuuming keeps it at bay and helps you to work easier.
4) Buy more than 1 bit. The bit gets really hot. Sometimes it sticks in certain grout spots. So because of those reasons the bit broke on Tim a couple of times and he had to stop and go out to Lowes to buy another one. So buying two or more doesn't hurt. If you don't use them, you can always return them.
5) Take everything out of the bathroom. And I mean everything. We have a small linen closet in there and when we finished removing the grout, I opened it up and saw that the dust was over everything in the closet. I should have taken everything out. Instead, I am going to be doing loads of laundry and some serious dusting.
We are tackling grouting now and I will write a post on Wednesday about how that all went down and hopefully some more tips as well.
Anybody else working on their bathroom? Anyone hate cleaning showers as much as I do?
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