DIY Homemade Grout Cleaner

I should have done it sooner.  Really I should have.  What?  Cleaned the grout on my tile floors!  To be honest, being a first time home owner in the last 4 years, and growing up in a home with no tile floors....I just mopped them on a regular basis to keep them clean and thought we were good to go.  It wasn't like anyone walked into my house and gasped in disgust that my grout wasn't as white as white out.  When our Realtor first came into our home to evaluate he was pretty pleased with how show ready our home already was.  He mentioned a few things while there that if we start to have trouble selling that we could change, but for now he thought it showed really nicely.  One of those "things" that he mentioned was that he knew a guy who would clean the grout on our tile floor and it would look brand new.  To be honest...that was the first time it ever occurred to me to clean the grout.  

Gasp?!  You...Bridget?!  Not know that??  Well that's what I feel like ya'll are thinking right now, but give me a moment....ok I am over it.  Judge me or not....I really didn't know! 

Last week after having 15-20 showings, 1 second showing, and no offers since we put our home on the market....we decided we must be priced too high for the market so we dropped the price on our house and offered a carpet allowance to the new buyer to basically replace the carpet for free in whatever color and style they choose.  

This of course sent us both into freak out mode with thoughts of changing a million things with the million dollars we don't have in order to get our home to sell.  I settled on doing the one thing I could do by spending 0 dollars....cleaning the grout :)  

And let me tell you....if you are a newbie to grout cleaning like I, it is potentially the most gratifying household chore I have ever done.  My floors looked so pretty!  I was like a little girl staring at herself in a princess costume in front of a mirror....I kept running to the other room to ask Dave to come look at how awesome the floors looked :) 

Here is a picture of my kitchen floor

BEFORE

Here is a picture of the kitchen floor half way through...

And wow!  I was absolutely amazed at the difference it made!

AFTER

Impressed?  I sure was!  

Here is the recipe I used:

Homemade Grout Cleaner

Ingredients:

3/4 cup baking soda

1/4 cup bleach

Old toothbrush

1.  Mix baking soda and bleach together.  I ended up adding more bleach to this recipe to make it a thinner gruel consistency. 

2.  Using an old toothbrush spread the mixture onto your grout in a hidden corner of your tile floor (I scrubbed back and forth about 10 times to get the grout to appear white and new).  Let sit after scrubbing for 5-10 minutes before rinsing.

3.  Rinse well with warm water and old rag.  Make sure this isn't discoloring your floor before proceeding on.  

4.  Once you are sure there is no discoloration proceed on to the rest of the grout.  I ended up doing about 4-6 tiles at a time so that I could let the grout sit for 5-10 minutes on each one and then I would go back and rinse the 4-6 tiles before starting a new section.  This worked well and kept the process moving.  

6.  Stand back in awe and admire your handiwork!  

*My whole kitchen floor took about 2 hours (our kitchen measures 11 x 15).

*Depending on the size of your floor you may need to mix up more solution.

What are some of your favorite homemade cleaning recipes?  Come share your thoughts today on Full Heart Full Home's Facebook page.  Over the years I've found most of them do a fantastic job and I prefer most homemade cleaners to commercial cleaners.

Blessings,