After Peter finished removing the grout and caulk that sealed our bathtub, we were stuck with the question of which one to use. We knew that you weren’t supposed to mix grout and caulk but which one do you use for a bathtub seal? After a lot of googling I learned that the correct answer is caulk. Here’s why: The foundation of a house will inevitably shift over time. Grout is such a hard substance that if you have used grout to connect seams (think bathtub to wall or one tile wall to another) it will crack when there is any shifting in your foundation. Since caulk had a bit more give, it can hold up better to any minor shifting. If you own a used house/condo/apartment and the previous owner used grout to fill these parts, you need to beware that if/when the grout cracks mold, mildew, and other types of ick are likely to accumulate in those wet crevices. Make sense?
Even after we knew that we would need to caulk things we still had some decisions to make. Many caulks swear that they will not mildew. After researching this on google and talking to my dad (have I mentioned that he’s the handiest person I know?) I learned that a lot of the brands that promise not to mildew still do it anyway. Apparently a lot of handy people do not consider it to be a permanent solution. You’re supposed to go into it knowing that it will eventually get gross again and at that time you’ll have to rip it out and start over.
My dad swears by using tape to get sooth edges. So this was the technique that we used. Start with a clean, dry surface. Use tape to expose only the surface that you want to be covered in caulk.
We used relatively inexpensive caulk that came out of a tube rather than buying a caulk gun. This may seem like common knowledge but if you choose to use a tube, start by cutting a smaller hole and then make it larger as need be. Squeeze a steady stream of caulk into the hole and then use a wet finger to smooth out the top. Make sure not to put an excessive amount, otherwise when you remove the tape you will have a raised caulk line.
Remove the tape while the caulk is still wet.
Let the caulk dry per the directions on the back on the container. Then you’re done. As tempting as they may seem, you really don’t need any of the special gadgets. It’s actually a lot easier than I thought and my dad’s trick of using tape left us with a really professional-looking line.
Here’s a before photo to remind you of the progress.
Have you ever caulked a bathroom? If so, feel free to add the tricks that worked for you.
We’re friends, right? So you’ll completely understand when I say that sometimes something is so bad that you decide you’ll pretend everything is okay and work on something easier instead. Have you ever done this? That is the story of our master bathroom. No one ever sees it and we have 1.5 other bathrooms. So when I moved in I looked at it, got overwhelmed, and decided to focus my efforts on something else. Finally, it was no longer avoidable. To be clear, we have no budget for a full bathroom makeover (goodbye fantasies of a fabulous bathtub), but it was finally so bad that something had to be done. Here is a glimpse of the disaster area that we’re working with. I’m not hiding anything here, so if nothing else, please appreciate my honesty.
You can already see the clutter that is piling up on the counter space, but worse was our linen closet. It seems like every forgotten item was pushed in here.
If you look at the photo above, you’ll see that we have a huge mess of things in here. I kept throwing dry cleaning on the bottom shelf because I didn’t want to leave it on the floor but the dry cleaner that we go to seems to only be open during the hours that I am at work. We have extras of everything as well as beauty products and vitamins that I bought at some period and then disliked or found something better. At the top of the closet was the extra toilet paper and a few clean towels that I would have to jump to reach. It was a mess.
But that’s still not the worst part. I’m pretty embarrassed to show you the state of the shower area.
You can already tell that it’s going to be bad. For some unknown reason, the person who owned the condo before us decided that it was a good idea to put wooden blinds with a metal top in a shower. Why would anyone ever think that was a good idea? The result was rotting blinds with rust mixing into the rest of the ick. Let’s see a close-up of all this.
You may be thinking, “How on Earth could you live for one moment in a house with such disgusting grout?” Well, instead of cleaning the grout like a normal person might do the previous owner caulked over bits of the grout that looked bad. He got mixtures of caulk and grout on the tiles and everything just looked gross.
Now obviously we didn’t just have issues with caulk and grout. The tiles were stained from hard water and just generally gross. Take special note of the floor of the bathtub. The grip of the floor had actually worn off in places, making it somewhat dangerous to use. Thankfully we have another full bathroom, and aside from the time we had a dinner party and paraded all of our guests up to the bathroom to see what a mess it was–I’d hate for people to ever think that we are without fault–no one ever saw it. Until now. I’m sharing it with you.
Peter and I were debating about what to fix in the condo: the dining area so that everyone would think that we were that much more fabulously put together, or the real issues of the bathroom. While sitting in our bedroom, staring with terror into the bathroom, we decided to take off the door to the linen closet. Immediately we had a bit of hope and we were committed. It is a pain and we’re nowhere near done. This weekend, albeit very productive, left us screaming and cursing at this horrible room. Go ahead, judge us, but stay tuned for the cathartic removal of the blinds, re-caulking, plumbing woes, and lots and lots of bleach.
