February 2013
Since Josh was on board to keep working on the bathroom I started by calling in a steam cleaner to try and clean our dirty grout. I figured that was the best way to start. They come out and were super friendly, they explained that our grout was bad and had probably not been sealed or at least so poorly maintained that there wasn't much they could do. I told them to give it a shot since they came. They did. The two guys worked for about 1.5 hour. Honestly, not a huge difference was made. They did seal the grout in the hope it would not get any worse. I think our solution is going to have to be a regrout- or maybe, if we stay in the house long term, to replace the tile. But for now I will have to be satisfied with my not so nice grout. The one thing I could change was the silicone along the floor line. The old material was covered in mildew and it did not clean up with any cleaning agent I had found.
This was all me. It took about two hours to cut and razor blade all the old silicone out. I did this sitting on a foam pad inside my shower. Not a fun way to spend a Saturday. Afterward I cleaned the area with bleach and water and put a dehumidifier in the room to clear out any moisture. The old silicone was a nice gray color which blended with the tile. Home Depot and Lowes had three options: white, clear and almond. I figured white was the best way to go. I really wished I had done more research here and either ordered gray silicone or maybe used water resistant caulk that was gray. The white silicone is very bright.
While I siliconed (yes I am making that verb) we decided to start painting the walls. Going off our last bedroom repaint oops I went with my gut and only bought one sample of paint. Benjamin Moore Stonington Gray. It is beautiful and the sample went up and matched the upper tiles in the bathroom perfectly. Without a second of waiting I went to Miller Paint and color matched a gallon in semi-gloss. I then set about frog taping all the edges. This was serious! I have never taped/cut in so much in my life. We had one door, one window, a tile shower, a sink cabinet, baseboards, lighting fixtures and a toilet. Thank God we decided to paint the ceiling the same color or else I may have gone a little batty.
The ceilings in the bathroom are too tall for me to reach even on my step stool so I called in Josh to paint out ceiling and cut in along the upper edge of the wall. I followed behind cutting in and using the weenie roll to roll the 2.5 sqft of actual wall space in the room. We were able to two coat the entire room in one Sunday. Since I had patched and filled all the holes the weekend prior. One weekend, one fresh clean space.
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