By far the dirtiest thing in this house when we bought it was the bathtub. It would make you cry just to look at it. No matter how long and hard I scrubbed it, it still looked dirty. I hated it. For Barry and me, this is our first time living somewhere with tile…and I gotta say, I’m not sure what the hullaballoo is about. I hate it.
Yes, I hate tile. I would rather have the stuff that’s all ONE piece instead of little cracks everywhere to clean. When you have children, little cracks just scream “Hey! Fill me up with something dirty…pretty please? Oh, and while you’re at it, would you run across me with wet feet, slip and fall down and cry bloody murder? Thanks.” Tile stinks.
In all fairness, I realize we might just have shoddy tile…but that’s okay – I would still prefer the other stuff. However, for now we’ll just live with it. An estimate to get it re-tiled and re-grouted was $800…and I’m too cheap to pay that. We got our tub refinished as part of our Christmas gift from Barry’s mom – and now it looks WAY better…but that grout is still yucky.
Barry and I are very much into DIY but neither of us have done tile…so that’s something we’ll have to learn later. For now, I just clean the tub and keep the curtain closed so no one else can see it.
I was able to get the grout cleaned to my satisfaction – so that I know it’s not dirty. Yes, it still LOOKS dirty, but I know it’s not. I tried all sorts of things before I finally found something that would budge that nastiness.
I tried: oxyclean, white vinegar, Kaboom (yes, I know that’s NOT natural…but I hate dirty tile), plain water, baking soda, spraying with peroxide, and just regular ole soap. Nothing. I was not going to buy bleach. I hate bleach. I won’t bring it into my house. I hate the smell and I hate the danger of using it…and I know I’d likely bleach everything accidentally and ruin clothing – that’s just how I roll.
I finally found something that would work and get the yuck off……
Enter baking soda, peroxide, and an old toothbrush. Bingo. It works GREAT! I wet the bathtub down, use my hand to wipe baking soda into the grout and then I let it sit a few minutes. After that, I wet my old toothbrush in peroxide and use it to scrub the grout area. It will foam – and it’s sorta fun…no matter how old you are. Your 3 year old will beg to “help.”
Note: make sure to put this toothbrush up and out of the way when you’re done, so that later your 3 year old won’t tell you that she “already brushed my teeth, Mama. I used the toothbrush in the bathtub.”
This is a little time intensive, so I’ll be honest…I won’t do it often.
Above you’ll see the picture I took before I cleaned it. Yuck. I’m sorry to put you through that. Below you’ll see my “after” photo. While it’s not perfect, it’s a lot cleaner. And I KNOW it’s clean…so for now I’ll keep my $800 and use my elbow grease. Maybe that’s what’s all over the tub anyway – elbow grease. Yep, that’s totally it. That and toe jam.
There are a lot of places on the tub that are still dirty, but they can’t be cleaned. It’s just old tile with missing pieces and it’s just dirty. That’s all there is too it – old and dirty. And while yes, my house is decorated in antiques and vintage items, old grout isn’t really on my list of “I wants.”
And now, as promised…a “magic” bathroom cleaner. Mindy from Creating Naturally is a good friend of mine and recently she told me how she cleans her bathtub.
- Mix 1 part white vinegar and 1 part dish soap in a spray bottle.
- Spray all over the bathtub.
- Let sit 20-30 minutes.
- Wipe down and spray off.
- Clean tub!
Thanks, Mindy!
I will have to remember this when we re do our kitchen and bathrooms. Right now we have wood floors in the bathrooms and laminate in the kitchen. Can’t wait to get them done.
Yes! Favorite this post for sure 🙂 Thanks for the comment,
Julie, Humorous Homemaking Team
My bathroom tiles were a sight for sore eyes: the grout was stained and looked filthy. Sadly I couldn’t afford to replace the grout for the entire bathroom. I found out about Nugrout products and decided to give it a try. I am amazed by how new my bathroom now looks with the new grout color, and how affordable the entire process was. Check out their website at http://www.nugrout.com. I highly recommend them.
Thanks!
I’ll never understand why people love tile! When I was a kid, we had tile on the windowsills and on the bathroom counter (tiny 1-inch tiles), and tiles were always coming loose and falling off! My husband and I bought our first home last year, and the most major job waiting on time and money is to re-do our bathroom. Unfortunately, ours goes beyond just dirty tile – our bathtub has tiles that are completely loose and falling off. The people we bought the house from saw no need to fix the tile – they just taped them back up (with clear packaging tape). So, of course, water got back in the wall and has caused mold and other damage. So our only solution is to tear out the entire bathroom. At least when we finally do it I will have a new bathroom – and you can be sure there will be no tile anywhere in sight! =)
YEAH! No tile here when we remodel either!
I hate tile too. When we build our dream home (you know, 50 years from now when we can afford it and we’re too old to enjoy it), we’ll have bamboo or cork floors. But for now we have tile throughout the downstairs. Light tile with dark grout that you would think would hide the dirt from 3 young kids, but I can never get it looking clean. Alas… I will have to try your trick!
Thanks for sharing.
I want my floors to be the color of natural dirt.
We moved to a house built in the early 70’s with the same original everything includine the olive green shag carpet. Oh yes! And most of the walls were pepto pink. When I saw all the yuck under the carpet, I said never again. So ALL if our house is tile except my son’s tiny room. So I feel your tile woes X 1000! I need a vat of Mindy’s solution and can I borrow that toothbrush and your elbow grease?
I don’t have any extra elbow grease at the moment. 🙂
Great post! My shower walls are identical to yours but my tub is a lovely powder blue. We are thinking about having it refinished and I’m curious what your experience was like. Did you have to leave the house for days, what did it cost, are you happy with the finish, etc? Any advice or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
Nope, I stayed at home while it was done. It was a bit smelly, but we have a bathroom window and he brought a fan….so it wasn’t bad. It cost $500 and I love the look. 🙂
I feel ya! We bought this house in August last year not knowing what I was getting into. We have three bathrooms tiled floors walls and all! Not to mention a fully tiled kitchen with tiled backsplash and tile in the dining rom. Everyone I had ever talked to about tile LOVED it…I am with you. I HATE HATE HATE it. But I am stuck with it, it would be almost as cheap to buy another house than to replace all this tile! One of the worst parts is that the master bath has hunter green tile…well I like hunter green, but not with our pink toilet, double pink sinks, and pink garden tub 🙁 I have been pinteresting up a storm for a solution for that!
Pinterest to the rescue! 🙂
We have tile in our bathrooms also. Our main bathroom has blue/green tile. I call it “school bathroom tile”…lol. Anyway, the house was built in 1950, so the tile is probably that old. I’m not sure what the original color of the grout was, but it seems to be brown for good now. The tub/shower wall is white tile & the grout is awful, cracked & stained. It’s almost hopeless, but what bothers me the most is our tub, which is blue/green in color. It’s cast iron & from the 50′. Apparently, it used to shine just like the matching sink we removed, but now it’s dull & after 6 yrs & multiple types of cleaners, I can’t get it to look clean. I’ve tried vinegar, so now I’ll try the Dawn mixture.
I think in some instances, there just isn’t much you can do. 🙁 That’s how I feel about our tile.
We have the same problem at our home, with tile in one of the bathroom showers. When we moved in, that tile had been badly mistreated for probably over a decade. I tried everything available in our town to get rid of the dark brown/green/black mold or dirt stains in the grout. I even tried products from a local company that sells cleaning products to schools and larger scale businesses. Nothing got that tile grout back to white or at least a cream color. To this day, no matter how much I work on it, it will not ever look clean. I, too, am disgusted with the whole tile thing and would also prefer a surround-style shower in there some day. While all the fancy, up-and-up bathrooms use tile, it is not easy to maintain the grout – which, by the way, is supposed to be resealed every 12 months. Who has the time to do that? If I could afford to hire a cleaning company, I would have them come just to work on trying to get the grout “clean” looking. I wouldn’t even care what products they used, just so it would look whiter again.
Oh, yeah, and I’m with the other commenter who said that they would be thrilled to have the “before” picture that you had. I would, too. At least yours isn’t dark green/black!
There is a before picture. 🙂 Picture #4 says “before” and Picture #5 says “After.”
I have to try this! Pinning!
Thank you!!
Yeah, I’m not a fan of tile. At all. Almost our entire house (except for the bedrooms) has tile floor. How much fun is THAT to keep clean? In dusty Arizona. With 2 kids. Ugh! Mr. Magic Eraser is both my best friend and my worst enemy. The only way I’ve been able to get the floor grout clean is scrubbing with a magic eraser on my hands and knees. I don’t do it often because a) those suckers are expensive and the grout shreds them quickly b) I’m lazy and I generally get bored and give up after scrubbing a 10 ft. section
The good news is we have no tile in our bathrooms 🙂 Phew
The house I grew up in had tile countertops like the ones you showed in your bathroom. Eeeeewwwww. I didn’t think about it as a kid, but now as an adult it gives me the hee bee jee bees to think about all the YUCK that could get in there from cooking. YUCK.
Maybe one day I’ll be able to replace the tile, but since we’re talking over 1000sq ft. of flooring to replace it’s not going to be happening any time soon 🙁
Ugh. That’s rough.
I’ve been using the tub cleaner for a couple of months now (found it on Pinterest :)). I have 2 little boys who love dirt and a big boy (okay, a husband) who works with vehicles for a living. So when the tub gets extra dirty, I add a sprinkle of baking soda before I wipe it down and rinse. Best stuff I’ve found yet. I’ll be trying the peroxide on countertops next. Thanks for the information. I, too, hate tile. 😉
Peroxide rocks.
We don’t have tile in our bathrooms (thankfully!!), but our shower gets super gross. I think its because it never really dries out in there cause our shower head leaks nonstop. (My husband has tried to fix it and even got a new one, but it still drip-drip-drips and drives me NUTS!) Anyway, there’s constantly pink and gray nastiness tryin to grow up in there – UGH. I’ve recently stopped using “commercial” cleaners around the house, and I’ve found that a spray bottle filled with about 1/2 water and 1/2 white vinegar (maybe a little more water in relation to the vinegar, I don’t measure), and a few drops of tea tree oil really works well. When I used the store bought cleaners, I’d spray on and scrub and scrub…and wear myself out while the gunk didn’t budge much. Now, I just spray my homemade stuff on, wait a few minutes (while I clean the rest of the bathroom), then I can just wipe and rinse. Super easy!! ( :
I love that homemade cleaners are so easy and quick to whip up!
I’ve had the same issue cleaning mine. So now that it is clean, I want to keep it that waylll…. Thus, after every shower spray it with Alice’s Wonder Spray: 1/4 c white vinegar, 2 tsp borax, 3.5 c hot water, and I use 2 tsp Bronner’s Sal Suds (only one that works) Originally, recipe called for only 1/4 c liquid dish soap. Sal Suds can be too sudsy. Add essential oil if want a fresh smell – lemon or lavendar. Pour in a spray leave in shower. I make a gallon jug at a time so it is always handy for re-fills.
This is also great at clean up in the stove. Dissolves all the grease and hard stuff from cooking that doesn’t get cleaned up right away.
I love Sal Suds! Thanks for posting that. 🙂
I am also a hater of tile also! We recently purchased a home in which both bathrooms have tile and grout. The tile floor in the shower is the worst, it is so much upkeep and I seem to never stay a step ahead of the mold and mildew. I am surely going to try your recipe!
I think people are like “I’m eventually going to move out, so why should I clean this tile for the next person?” LOL
The tile when we moved into our house was just the same…YUCK. My husband spent a lot of time removing the old grout and replacing it with new. We (He) did it for about $300. A lot of work but totally worth it. My bathroom looks brand new!
I think we’re eventually going to do that – but for now we’re focusing outside. 🙂 You Tube videos here we come!
That’s exactly where we learned to do it!!
I seriously love You Tube.
I too, hate tile. I’ve always wondered what the fuss was about. I’m glad to know I’m not the only one! 🙂
You are not alone sista…you are not alone.
Mrs. Stacy, Thank you for the inspritation. My tub is now clean, but I used Soft Scrub, because I didn’t have the ingredients. I did have Apple Cider Vinegar. Does that matter what kind of vinegar it is? Also in your recipe you said “One part dish soap…etc.” How much is a “part”? Just curious. Thank you for the inspritation and motivation for cleaning. It helped me today! How often do you clean your home, and do you have a list of the natural cleaning products you do use? Thank you so much for your post today!
A “part” is however much you want to make. It can be 1/2 cup or 4 cups…either. I usually use white vinegar to clean with because it’s cheaper and because the smell isn’t as strong. I try to clean something every day so I don’t get overwhelmed. I use two charts. If you’ll holler at me via email, I’ll send you those links. 🙂
Stacy,
I’m always looking for a way to clean that’s more Green (both to the environment & my wallet!). Could you direct me to those cleaning charts, too? Thank you so much… I LOVE your posts!!!
I posted them both on Facebook. Here they are: my wipe-off frame, and my 30-Day checklist.
FYI The kind of grout that was made during the 1960’s is made from different compoents than the the grout that was made later. My home was built in 1967, it had white grout that never shows dirt, or turns dark. I agrre with your comment about the newer grout that gets dingy and no matter how much you scrub it,it still loks dirty. I like your solution.
I think this house was built in 1951, but the bathroom has been done in the last 10 years or so…I miss linoleum.
I am always on the lookout for natural cleaners… THAT WORK!! I hate it when I go to the trouble to find the ingredients, mix up a concoction (sp?) and then have it have no more cleaning power than my plain white vinigar which I keep in bottles all around my house for regulate cleaning. I recently can across a cleaner you make with orange peel and vinagar in a jar. You fill a mason jar with orange peel (using up waste 🙂 yahoo) fill with as much vinagar as will fit. Close up the jar and let sit in the sun on a window sill for two weeks. Drain out liquid into a spray bottle and it is supposed to work like iron out (that would whiten tile too but is just as super yucky as bleach =s). It also looks pretty in the prosses!!! I have some started so I will let you know how it works. I think you can use lemon peel too. Happy cleaning (is that possible ??:)
I love orange vinegar! 🙂 It also works with lemon peels…anything citrus!
Lessons learned in my 49 years of living….. NEVER EVER use WHITE grout for anything EVER! Especially on floors OR Bathroom tiles! 🙂
Amen to THAT. Amen to that….I felt the Spirit moving.
Oh, yes! Keep it comin’! 🙂
Hi Stacy! My husband just finished tiling our shower a few months ago, and I was so excited at how beautiful and modern-looking it was! I finally got to use our master bathroom shower after living here almost seven years! (We’re do it your selfers too!) But not too long after that, I noticed black stuff on the floor and in the grout. Oh no, it can’t be! Yes, it was mold! I hate cleaning that stuff! But for me, vinegar and water in a spray bottle works best. I don’t know if that’s what is supposed to be used on grout, but it’s the only natural thing that worked. The hubs is actually planning on painting the floor of the shower with the same thing hospital’s use on their shower floors. Mold won’t grow on it. Thanks for sharing! Blessings from Bama!
Mold…I hate that nasty stuff. It pops up so quickly.
I don’t like tile either for the same reasons you gave. It sounds good until you actually have to live with it.
It looks good on television…I think I’ll just leave it there.
Good morning! I am going to try the vinegar/dish soap solution on our tub (it’s a one piece 🙂 )because I am not even a fan of elbow grease, even though it is way higher on my list than chemicals. There are some that swear by the Norwex cloths for cleaning, which means no solutions/cleaners. I think I remember you talking about the e-cloth. Have you had good luck with these types of cloths for cleaning?
I have never used Norwex…honestly, I’m too cheap to buy it. LOL Maybe one day.
There is something called e-cloth that is apparently cheaper but I haven’t tried it. I try to make as many natural cleaners as I can. I splurged on a bottle of Dr. Bonners with lavendar and use a little bit of that in a spray bottle with water. Otherwise, for me it’s vinegar, borax, baking soda and hot water in a spray bottle for my multipurpose spray.
I really love Dr. Bronners soap!
When we bought our house we had all new tile (Lucky us) but our realtor Josh told us to help keep it looking new without all the hard work, to buy Miracle Sealants 511 grout sealer at Home Depot for about $10 a can. It was so easy. When your tile is new and/or just cleaned, just spray it on and don’t get it wet for 24 hours. It’s oil, stain, and water resistant. We re-seal all the tile in our bathrooms once a year but I can honestly say that we have not had to scrub any tile since we moved in in 2009. We pretty much take a shower, squeegee the water off the tile with our Dollar store squeegee, and it looks as clean as the day we moved in. So now that you put in all that hard work to get it clean…keep it clean!
I wish it was clean. 🙁 But it’s not…it still looks dirty even though I know the gook is gone. I’ll keep this tip in mind if/when we re-grout. Thanks, Becca!
Rebecca – do you spray it on the tile and grout, all over? I had heard that grout sealing needs to be applied to the grout only, so it takes forever to carefully paint it onto the grout lines without getting it on the tile. Would love to hear more about how you did it, if you say it was easy! Do you do this in the bathroom only? We have tile floors all over the house, so it would take me years to carefully paint all the grout lines… Thanks! 🙂
The grout sealer comes in an aerosol can, kind of like hair spray. We only sprayed it on the grout lines. It goes on clear and drys clear. We used it on the bathroom grout lines, kitchen back splash, and on the kitchen floors which are stone. Just spray it on and wait 24 hours. We do the kitchen floor right before leaving on vacation so no issues of anyone walking on it. The whole house (3 bath and kitchen) take about 4 cans of grout sealer. The grout lines have never faded in the kitchen and the bathroom looks like the day we moved in. I might have forgot to mention in my other post that in the bathroom I have a small spray bottle with half vinegar half water I spray the walls with before I squeegee. Other than that the bathrooms have sparkling white tile and I don’t have to mess with them. Good thing, cause I’m a little lazy lol
I thought I would love tile when my husband and I bought our first house, so we replaced the horrid laminate wood floor in the kitchen with clearance-priced 12″x12″ tile. (Good thing it was a small kitchen – my husband and a friend had to rip out three layers of old floor and replace the underlay before the tile could be put in.)
I liked it for about a month.
Since we walked through the kitchen when coming inside or going outside, the floor was constantly dirty. Add two cats and eventually a black lab puppy, and there were ubiquitous balls of fur rolling across the nearly-white tile like tumbleweeds in the desert, no matter how many times a day I swept.
I’ll be honest – I didn’t clean the grout, despite how many food items were dropped on the floor. I swept and mopped. but my husband was the one who strapped on the kneepads and scrubbed between each tile with a stiff brush and several Clorox bleach pens.
I’d rather have linoleum.
I <3 linoleum.
Me, too! We put this beautiful linoleum in our kitchen when we remodeled it 7 years ago, and so many people have commented because they thought it was tile! It doesn’t show dirt, and we just love it. 🙂
Sounds right up my alley!
Forgive my spelling this morning. I meant pen!!
Stacy, there is a grout pin you can buy at the hardware store or maybe Amazon that you can use to “paint” for lack of a better word old grout. I have used it on my floor and it made a huge difference. It is easy to use and might be worth checking into.
I’ll tell Barry to look at Lowes next time. Thanks, Sandy!
That is an excellent bathroom cleaner. I found it on Pinterest and I decide to try it. I use Dawn dish soap (the directions called for Dawn), I’m not sure if other types of dish soap will work. But it’s an excellent combination!!!
Everyone that uses it seems to love it!
Stacy,
I love it and I’m excited to try it out. I also DESPISE cleaning the annoying tiled bathtub 🙁 UGH! And here’s the kicker… you’ll totally love this- we rent an apartment and our bathtub tiles… are black and pink! Ooo, Ooo!!! Cant wait to try this out! Thanks for sharing!
Mine is this light blue color…and I’m not very fond of it, but it works. Black and pink doesn’t sound too bad to me. 😉
My bathtub/shower grout is foul looking. I’d be thrilled to have your ‘before’ picture. Mostly, I keep the shower doors closed so people don’t see it. I clean it regularly, but nothing makes it LOOK clean. I am going to try your method today, but I think what I really need is a flamethrower.
I use a Magic Eraser to clean the tub but MIndy’s spray sounds nice and lazy. Are the parts equal? I mean, if I use 1 cup of vinegar do I need 1 cup of dish soap too?
If I clean the grout and the tub at the same time, that will make a lot of bubbles. 😀
Yes, the parts are equal. Good luck! 🙂
My grout is just too deeply stained I think. The baking soda/peroxide scrub made no difference at all. Ugh.
I saw the grout paint suggestion and will look into that.
The vinegar + Dawn dish soap spray was MAGIC. I didn’t even have to let it sit for long. I sprayed and got impatient, so after just a minute I swiped at the test area with a finger and the soap scum vanished.
Hooray! And yes, most of my grout is the same way. I just take comfort in knowing that NOW it’s really clean…even if it doesn’t look that way.
After you have cleaned your tile, use a good car polish to seal your grout. This will help repel dirt. I used to have the same tile, I would seal it about 3 or 4 times a year. The way you feel about tile, I feel about carpet, I do NOT like carpet. I say my carpet has clean stains. With 2 dogs and a cat they have done a number on the carpet. Good luck with the tile.
I don’t care for carpet either…but I think I hate tile worse. LOL