Tim and I started our weekend off with a relaxed evening at Katie and Scott’s! It had been a whole week since I had seen baby Halstyn and Elena was super excited, asking to “Hold Baby Now” all week! I made another personalized picture for Halstyn’s room and framed it to take over as well.
We had a good night, enjoying some manicotti I made and watching the KU game (Go Jayhawks!) while Tim and Scott worked on some electrical things in their basement.
Saturday morning we got up bright and early to head to Cowtown for the Wichita St. Patrick’s Day 5k! It was benefiting Big Brothers Big Sisters so a lot of my co-workers were running too. It was my first official 5k and while I have been running 3+ miles on my treadmill lately, I hadn’t run that much outside OR while pushing E in the jogging stroller.
It was cold and windy and definitely challenging to run up the hills while pushing Elena but I challenged myself and ran it in 36:14. I’ll take a 12 minute mile while pushing a stroller right now! Maybe I’ll try my next 5k solo without the jogging stroller…
E and I relaxed that afternoon then whipped up some meat sauce to take to our friend’s house for a spaghetti dinner and the KU game.
Sunday was house cleaning time after some more St. Patrick’s Day fun for breakfast at a friend’s house.
I have tried just about everything when it comes to cleaning my grout (both in my kitchen and bathroom) and have never found anything that would clean them. Until now.
I found a trick on Pinterest I decided to try that said that carpet cleaner would clean your grout. I was skeptical but had a bottle (despite the fact that we have NO carpet in our house)
After letting it set for just a few minutes, I scrubbed along all the grout lines with a brush (or the coarse side of a sponge would work) then wiped it all clean with a damp rag.
This before and after shot speaks for itself, doesn’t it? I did the same to my bathroom grout this weekend and it looks amazing too (I just forgot to take a picture!). If you have some dirty grout like I do, I definitely recommend this. I have read all of the posts about homemade remedies but this was just SO easy!
With clean grout and a clean house I started redecorating my house in my mind. We have lived there for 4 1/2 years and I pretty much hate most of it these days. Stay tuned for updates as I try to inexpensively freshen it up.
Best,
Sweet Caroline
sweet caroline. 
I have a new neice or nephew on the way….due in October 🙂 love the baby sign!!!
Congrats! And thank you for your kind words and the follow! One of these days I am going to get my Etsy up and running so I can share my love for these things with the world!
Loving the cleaning tip! Thanks for sharing.
I stumbled upon it and was excited to share! Glad you liked it!
Hi, any idea if the carpet cleaner would be safe/work on colored grout? I have a tile countertop with black grout. I have had amazing success with CLR bathroom and kitchen spray on my white bathroom floor grout but it says right on the bottle not to use it on colored grout 😦 P.S. I came to your blog via pinterest
Good question, but i don’t know! I only had staining on my lighter grout.
I used it on off-white grout and light grey grout and it worked great on both!
Thanks for visiting and your question. I will have to check in to darker grout. What kind if staining does your black grout have?
I have used shaving cream before. Worked good. Have to try this tip!
That sounds like a good one to try too! Thanks!
I wonder if this would work on shower doors?
Oxyclean works well too. I didn’t have the powder to mix into a paste, so tried it with the pre-wash spray which also directs easily into the grooves. It seemed to continue bleaching the grout even after I wiped up the excess. Hey! Whatever works! thanks for posting your idea!!
Thanks so much for sharing this great tip. I can’t wait to try it!!!
Warmly, Michelle
Of course!
I figured out if you let it sit for awhile you will literally see the dirt being pulled out into the foam.
Good luck with your grout!
How did you make that sign? What program did you use???
I am no graphics expert but I just used Adobe Photoshop!
I have tried every home remedy for cleaning tile grout too, but never would I have even thought to use heavy traffic carpet cleaner! Thank you for sharing this! (:
Happy to help! Hope it works as well for you as it did for me!
How does it look weeks after the cleaning?? still clean? did it harm the grout at all?
Still looks great (more than 2 months later) I’ll be sure to share a picture!
And no, not any damage.
So I found this and ran out and bought a can tonight. I was so excited as my grout is about the same color as her before grout. I sprayed it on and let it sit for over an hour. I did not see any lifted dirt. I used a wire bristle brush and scrubbed repeatedly and then wiped. It dried and it is the same as before. No difference. I wasted $4.00.
Sorry to hear that. I don’t claim to be an expert, just sharing a trick that worked for me 🙂
One of my friends didn’t have any luck with it either but I have talked to way more people it has worked for so maybe it is sealed differently.
Maybe your ‘before’ grout color was originally a dark stained grout? It may have been dirty but the original color wasn’t that different? Just a thought….
OMG! I have been battling my kitchen grout for over 4 years since we bought our house, desperately trying to get it back to its original color so we could properly seal it… thanks a lot previous owner, ugh! I have tried everything including oxy clean, bleaching and scrubbing with a toothbrush, using brillo pads, magic eraser, professional strength grout stain remover, etc. My husband and I tried the carpet cleaner that you suggested last night, let it sit for about 10 minutes, scrubbed with a plastic bristle scrub brush and wiped with a wet sponge… AMAZING!!! Nothing, and I mean NOTHING has worked as well as this worked on my grout!! Our next step was to give up and re-grout our tile… no longer needed now… so thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!!!
I am SO glad it worked so well for you!
Glad you came across the post and gave it a try. Definitely easier than regrouting! 🙂
Thanks for this awesome post! I shared it with my readers and linked it back to you. I am loving my new clean kitchen grout! If you’d like to see the post, it is here: http://littlebitsofeverythingqce.blogspot.com/2013/04/pinned-it-friday-rachel-edition_19.html
Thanks for the share! So glad it worked for you and I appreciate the kind words 🙂
it doesn’t work for colored grout. I have dark green grout and I tried it too, with Resolve and there was very little difference.
What’s kind of tile do you have? Just curious if it would be safe for marble?
I just have ceramic tile so I am not sure about marble, sorry!
It worked for me too!!! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Since the grout has to be sealed when it put down, does this remove the sealer and if so, did you reseal the grout. Floor looks great, by the way.
Did anyone else that tried this notice that it takes for ever to get up all the suds? I let it sit for about 20 mins, scrubbed with a green sponge, and then basically had to flood my floor 2 hours later to get up all the carpet cleaner suds! That part sucked. I noticed big differences in some areas, and not so good in others. I plan on doing some touch ups still, but the cleaning up of the foam really was a nightmare for me.
Any suggestions for cleaning colored grout? Our kitchen counters have charcoal colored grout that was never sealed. Can’t use bleach products because it messes up the silestone.
I tried this on my ceramic tile and grout (my floors look very much like yours), using the same product pictured. It totally worked! The bad news is that it only did about a quarter of my kitchen floor (approximately 60 square feet) before I ran out, and the odor was very strong. When I went to get more, I decided to try my luck using Resolve High Traffic Foam. I paid right at $7.00 for a twin-pack at Walmart (about $1.00 less per bottle than the Woolite…not much savings, but I’ll take it). I used this on the same floor, right next to where I had used the Woolite product. My results were the same! It covered pretty much the same amount of square footage, but costs less per bottle. The smell was not nearly as strong as the Woolite product either. Thank you for this tip!
I accidentally dropped Orange Juice on my kitchen tile and it turned my grout white, LOL…all this time I thought it was supposed to look like that and now I’m wondering if it’s supposed to have a white look to it. I guess the acid in the juice cleaned it out, LOL
It was amazing letting the spray sit and came back, could see the dirt lifted up. I then decided to put it on my laminate floor and saw dirt just lifted up even after it being washed a few days ago. Thanks.
Wow…works amazing!! Thanks for the tip. One word of advice for people with limestone floors or marble floors, be very careful to stay in the grout lines as this will etch the stone. You can tape the stone off, which may require a lot of extra work, but its totally worth it.
Wow! I cant wait to try this. I love tips that are easy! Thanks for sharing. I’m visiting you from OneCreativeMommy.com.
AMAZING!!! Didn’t have the Woolite but tried the Resolve in a small spot and worked like a dream. We have very porous ceramic tile and difficult to clean. We ended up spraying and scrubbing tile as well… THANK YOU!!!!!!
So glad it worked for you! It saved my floors!
I just tried squirting some of my 99 cent store “LA’s Totally Awesome Carpet Spot & Stain Remover” to my grout, which is colored, and then scrubbed after 10 minutes with a plastic bristle scrub brush and it came out like brand new! I don’t think it was even a whole 10 minutes before it worked! So you can probably do a whole floor for about a dollar and in no time at all.
That is great to hear! Thanks for sharing!!
I’ve tried it and it really works !!! Thanks for sharing this !!
I just tried this, hoping to find a solution to my grout on the kitchen floor and it did not work. I left the cleaner for about 10 minutes and it did not make any difference on the grout lines. Thanks anyways.
So I have had this pinned for a while to try in a gross basement bathroom but just haven’t gotten around to it (cause it’s a gross basement bathroom). Well the tile in my nice, very white upstairs bathroom was starting to get discoloration in the grout that I just couldn’t get clean so I finally went and got some foaming carpet cleaner (Resolve I think). The foam slid down the wall tile pretty quickly, so at first I didn’t think this would work for me as I couldn’t let it sit at all, but I sprayed again and got a scrubber out. This worked like magic for me! My lovely bathroom looks like new again! Thanks for sharing. The trick for my case was scrubbing, I did not let it soak but just got right in there with a hard bristled scrub brush. I guess I’ll need to dig in to that basement bath now… 🙂
Oh my goodness! I am definitely going to have to try this. My husband and I have been at a loss as to how to clean the grime from our bathroom shower grout. We have tried vinegar and baking soda, oxyclean, all of those fancy bathroom cleaners, scrubbing until the cows come home and we have never been able to fully clean out grout. I will have to buy this Woolite carpet cleaner foam. Thanks!
I hope it works for you! It definitely has fumes so be sure to ventilate the bathroom well while you’re working in it!
Good luck!
Your blog was mentioned in the Raleigh News and Observer in December. I have been looking for Woolite Heavy Traffic cleaner, with no luck. Not in Target, Wal-mart, Lowe’s or grocery stores. Where did you find yours?
This totally worked!!!. My grout went from looking dark brown to its original light color. Thanks for this awesome tip.
I tried it today. I was thoroughly disappointed because it doesn’t look like I even cleaned today. I will stick with my Zep tile cleaner!
i tried it in my shower and it didn’t work. at all. i had cleaned it just before and towel dried it, but i’m wondering if the grout needs to be really really dry for it to work? i’ll have to try it 24 hours after a shower next time.
I have been trying many different cleaning products & have found that OxiClean works pretty well on my grout but still thinking what else can I use that would be better. Going to try your solution/idea. Thanks for sharing your experience. I find it interesting that you are mentioning Kansas & KU because I have family in Lawrence. Also big KU fans & alum.
Good luck!
Great to hear about fellow KU fans on the blog as well 🙂 I was born and raised in Lawrence!