The Neverending Tile Project

When we moved into this house, we knew we would one day have to replace the white tile. The primary reason was because it was hideous and hard to clean (which made it more hideous). It had a shiny top that liked to keep debris despite my desperate Swiffering, sweeping, and scrubbing.

The design on the tile was textured, which is also awesome for retaining dirt and crumbs.

Not to mention that two pieces were broken, and that dark grout from the '80s was thick. For a while, this tile was the subconscious bane of my existence (now that title has been granted to the Master Bath, since this tile is dead).

The breaking point came when the two tiles that were broken (right in front of that trash compactor that we don't use) shattered. They started splintering into tiny pieces. Shattered tile + brand new baby = bad idea. I mean, he won't crawl for lots of months, but who wants to redo tile with an infant anyway? So the new tile was picked out, scheduled, paid for, and installed. (The "paid for" part was painful.)

Fast-forward to two weeks ago:

So fresh and so clean, clean.

However, we weren't thinking straight and didn't remove the trash compactor before they tiled (they told us we didn't need to. Don't listen to "them"). So the tile somehow ended up not-so-straight right where the broken tile used to be. We have the tile-man in our house right now fixing that problem...

If you look closely, you can kind of see where the cut tile is crooked.

And my awesome husband pulled out the trash compactor! It's definitely going to be in the charity garage sale (for anti-human trafficking) at our house next week. I'd rather have a hole there than have a nasty trash compactor that we don't use! I was honestly too grossed out to open it.

We were also disappointed that our grout didn't match the tile like we wanted it to. The grout is about 16 shades lighter than what we picked, and a totally different hue. The name of the grout was correct, but could someone please tell me why grout companies don't just give you a legitimate sample color?

Light grout is pretty much the worst since it stains so easily, and we did not want that. We did opt for the super-sealed grout (which supposedly will never stain). I'm still confused by how they are adding a grout stain to a grout that won't ever stain? Riddle me that.

If you look closely, you will see that the white grout disappears! That's where they've added the stain. I am so excited to go home and see the finished result! Sometimes, it's the little things...

Love,