The Groutmare

I think I got my just desserts for bragging about how easy it was to lay the slate tile in the bathroom. It was easy to stick it to the floor - it has not been what I (or my knees) would call easy to make it actually look like a floor. Enter the groutmare.

Remember mud pies when you were a kid? The pure unadulterated joy that you got out of making just the right texture mud to make a pie-ish thing that you could then smash, throw or smear nicely on the front of your outfit (or, if you were that kid, eat.) Yeah. They're still fun as an adult. Mixing grout is about like that - you get it to mud pie texture, then have a coffee break because it needs to rest or rise or settle or whatever it is that grout needs to do. So far, so good.

Given how enamored I am of my slate tiles, I was a little scared of the grout at first but figured that it's kind of a necessary step, so I should get on with it. Essentially you glop the mud/grout on the floor then use a rubber thingy to shove (through the clever application of brute force) the grout into all the little gaps between the tiles. Joey, my local hardware store flooring guy informed me, with some measure of hilarity, that it would be great for building my "Popeye forearms." Thanks Joey. Now not only am I the weirdo girl who is fixing up her house, I'm the girl with "Popeye forearms" too. At this point I might just as well grow a full handlebar mustache and beer belly for all the attractive feminine energy I'm exuding.

Anyway, forearms aside, you essentially spend a few hours on your knees jamming this mud into the spaces, while becoming liberally coated yourself. Then you spend the next few hours alternately sponging the floor, and cleaning the sponge all the while cursing the mud pie mixture because a) it won't stick where it should and b) won't come off where you want it to. Essentially the mud mixture creates a thin, unattractive, incredibly tenacious film on top of the tiles, but peels right out of the spaces. The film, as it turns out, takes roughly 90 (and counting) rounds of scrubbing to come off, but I've still got streaks so I'll keep you posted.

GROUTMARE!!!

I'm convinced this is the reason that the word "grout" sounds like a disease. Like one could get a raging case of the grout, or perhaps cause a scandal - i.e. 'He seemed so perfect until I found out about the grout!' It should come with a rash and some hand-wipes.

Not only that, the grout that I chose is a deep charcoal grey - really rather lovely with the slate, but not so good under my fingernails and in all the little teeny lines on my palms, knuckles and hands in general. My hands looks like B-movie zombie hands. I'm getting more attractive by the moment - Popeye muscles and zombie hands. Now all I need is a hump on my back and maybe fangs and I'll be the movie-monster-hybrid girl. The best part is that due to the setting grout, I can't use the shower in that bathroom for another 24 hours, which means that I'm stuck in the bathroom without a functional shower. I have a tub, but it's not helping the zombie hands. Maybe next time I should hire someone else to do the grout part...