TGIF---Grout Cleaning & Fall Patio Preparation

TGIF!  It has been quite a week for me this week. Whew.........I must say the hours it takes me to prepare for a party are exhausting.........at least at my age! If you were to ask my husband, he would say that I go a bit crazy with it, but we won't go there right now. Besides I think it is in my bloodline, my sister goes crazy preparing for her parties too!!

Yesterday, was a beautiful day, low 70's and sunny. It was a great day to prepare the gardens and
patios for the party. After all, it is only one week away. It's kind of sad in a sense that most of the beautiful Spring flowers had lost their color and were ready to be replaced. The coleus, however, looked beautiful. Adding colorful mums to the mix of existing coleus, always gave our patios a nice look for Fall. I use my tried and true Indiana University colors---Cream and Crimson, something I adopted years ago when two of our daughters attended there. They are always so classic.

 The marigolds are still prolific and giving a nice yellow and orange burst of color along with the perimeter of my perennial bed. The Prairie grass is beautiful this year. I love the cabernet color........this is one of my favorite grasses. You cannot beat that color paired with orange and yellow!

 
After, finishing outside I focused my attention inside. While my husband travels I try to accomplish things on the preparation list that may take me a bit longer. 

We have a very light ceramic tile floor in our kitchen and when we moved in, it looked like this. I could not imagine how any floor could become that dirty. Where is that nice cream tile???

At the time we hired a tile company to come in, clean the floor thoroughly, changed the grout to a lighter color and then had it sealed. This was to help with dirt accumulating in the grouted areas.

 

 

Unfortunately, after two years our kitchen grout (BELOW) was showing the signs that a good cleaning was required. When I watched the gentlemen two years previously cleaning the grout I

thought, oh, I can do that!

I hate admitting this but........the lower right is my dirty grout. I used Chlorox and a great CVS toothbrush to get into the grout cracks, using paper towel to wipe away the dirt. I then steam cleaned the tile 3 times to remove the residue.

The left side, and top of photo reflect my results, however, I never imagined it would take me "5" hours and 3 Motrin to complete!

Maybe my husband is right, I may be a bit crazy. All I could think of is the $$$$ that I was saving........and thinking about how I could now buy those new TIEKS travel shoes!

Wishing you a wonderful weekend!!