Renewing Old Tile Grout

First of all, please do not judge me for how disgusting our tile grout was in the before picture.

Thanks so much.

Our house that we are currently living in was built in 1997.

And as you probably know, we are fixing it up in hopes of making it easier to sell.

And something HAD to be done to the tile floors.  

We have tile in both the kitchen and dining areas (that are attached).

After doing a little bit of research, I came across this product from Home Depot (after seeing the lovely people from Young House Love use it in their blogpost found here.)

My husband was actually the one who worked long and hard on this whole project.  

I just read a couple blogposts, decided on the color, and gave the occasionally "great job!"

Whew.  Exhausting.

Actually, I was busy painting the doors black while hubby worked on the floors.

I have to admit, my project was MUCH easier, and I'm so grateful he agreed to do it.

TileLab's Grout & Tile Cleaner and Resealer was used to clean the tile, mainly, before the Grout Renew was applied (both can be found at Home Depot).

M applied the Grout Renew (we went with Oyster Gray color - it still looked clean without being too white) with a tooth brush, and wiped any excess off of the tile with a damp towel.

Since this tile is in the kitchen and dining area, and because our home is small, it was hard to stay out of these areas completely.  We tried to be pretty careful for the first 24 hours, and tried to keep water off the grout for 72 hours (per the directions on the bottle).

We bought 2 bottles and ended up taking one back.

We used less than 1 bottle and have enough to finish up both bathrooms. 

It seriously looks like we just had new tile put in.

All in all, it's a super inexpensive way to revamp old tile floors!

Happy Thursday, y'all!

Rox

Homemade Laundry Detergent

You may remember reading about the homemade dish detergent I made a while back.

And while I really do like the dish detergent, I absolutely LOVE the laundry detergent! (And I owe it all to my friend Susan sharing the recipe on Facebook last Fall!)

A similar recipe can be found here.

I made my first batch in December and didn't have to make another one until June.

Laundry detergent that cleans well, smells good and lasts 6 months?  Yes, please.

And we have 3 adults and 2 children using it, so that's A LOT of laundry.

What makes it smell so good is the Purex Crystals (which also come in other scents), but I love the Tropical one I have pictured.

A modification I made this last time was to grate one for bar of the fels-naptha soap for a little extra stain fighting power.

I bought all of these items at Wal-Mart (which seems to be the cheapest), INCLUDING the bucket for about $30!

Instructions:

Grate Fels-Naptha Bar(s) with cheese grater.  Pour all ingredients into large 5 gallon bucket and mix with large spoon or ladle.  You'll have to mix A LOT.  Next, pour some of the mixture back into the Purex bottles.  This makes it easier to pour, and the top can be used to measure.

Easy as that!

And I promise you won't regret making it!

Happy Monday, y'all!

Rox

DIY Dish Detergent

After trying homemade laundry detergent a couple of different ways, I finally fell in love with (is that possible?  Exaggeration seems to translate well in a blog post.) a dry version that a friend posted on Facebook last fall.

I'll post a review of that one very soon.

I thought a dry version of dish detergent should be pretty similar.

So, I searched on Pinterest for a recipe.

And since we are all about honesty on this blog, the thing that won me over was the oversized Mason Jar the detergent was stored in.

No, it wasn't the ingredients.

No, it wasn't how well I thought it would work.

Apparently, what matters most to me is aesthetic appeal.

Period.

(And I just googled 'aesthetic appeal' to make sure it meant what I thought it did.  I didn't want to embarrass myself.  Geez.)

Well, thank goodness this recipe not only had great aesthetic appeal, but it works great too!  

Photo and Recipe courtesy of Liz Marie Blog

I believe this cost around $10 to make the entire gallon mason jar (plus a little borax and washing soda left over) plus the cost of the jar that can be used over and over again.  

Let us know if you try this out and what you think!

Rox