Gross Grout Cleaning!

As most homes in the southwest...I have a lot of tile in my home. And, those of you with lots of children, like me, understand how hard it is to keep the grout clean. Well, on Pinterest, there were a lot of ideas on how to clean your grout...so I decided to try one. The one I tried was from Aprrils Opinion blog.

First I want to show you my floors...

I know! GROSS! I hate grout!

Between the fridge and island (where the kiddo's eat) is even worse!

So, as you can see, I was desperate!

Here is the formula that was recommended...(copied from Aprril's blog)

7 cups warm water
1/2 cup baking soda
1/3 cup ammonia
1/4 cup vinegar

Now this much liquid didn't even close to fit into my tiny little spray bottle and it probably won't fit in yours either, so here is the recipe halved and quartered.

Halved
3 1/2 cups water 1/4 cup baking soda
2 Tbsp + 2 tsp ammonia
2 Tbsp vinegar

Quartered
1 3/4 cup water
2 Tbsp baking soda
1 Tbsp + 1 tsp ammonia
1 Tbsp vinegar

I used the quartered version for the pics below. I also wrote the formula on a piece of paper and taped it to the bottle. Make sure never to mix bleach with ammonia, you will die or something...

Here is the method:

First mix the ingredients and give the bottle a good shake.
Spray the grout (I started with 2 tiles at a time) and let the spray sit and absorb a little into the grout. Be generous.
Grab a grout brush, scrub brush, or tile brush with a handle and scrub the grout vigorously where the spray has been sitting. Don't get it in your eyes, trust me.
Use a clean damp rag to wipe each line of grout right after you scrub it to pick up all that dirty liquid, might be handy to keep a bowl or bucket of warm water nearby because you'll want to continuously clean the rag.
Depending on the color of your tile, you may want to mop the whole thing when you're done because the baking soda may or may not leave some white residue. Personally, I mopped and towel dried the floor.

OK, so I did all that...here are some pictures of the outcome...

Already much better! It does leave a white film on everything the liquid touches!

Here is the grout after wiping it down.

And, after I went back and mopped everything down.

I have to say, I am pretty surprised! It does look great.

The bummer to this...the grout just gets dirty again. It's been two weeks since I tried this and it definitely is staining up again. But hey, for a couple weeks it looked great!

Thanks Aprril!