Plaster & Disaster

As I’ve talked about before, we use the back door to our house as our main entrance — that’s where our driveway is, and that lets us enter into the sunroom/mudroom rather than into our small front hallway.

It works pretty well, except when we’re trying to give someone directions to our house. The driveway actually accesses from a different street than the front door, which means that if you type our address into a GPS, you arrive at the front of the house and have nowhere to park and no way to get in. To make matters worse, there’s no house immediately across the street at the back of our house, which means we can’t give that address and tell people we’re across from it. Instead, we give people a fake address that will lead them to approximately the right place and then tell them what driveway to look for based on what our car looks like. It’s a little clumsy, to say the least.

Ever since we moved in, I’ve wanted to make a sign to put at the end of the driveway that will make it a little easier to identify our house. However, I had not gotten my act together to make said sign, though I had bought some supplies that sat neglected in the basement taunting me.

Then one lovely day, my dear friend Zoe came over for dinner bearing a gift. The perfect gift!

Zoe is the same one who helped us paint the guest room, so she is pretty much the best. It’s from an Etsy shop called Starry Night Signs (affiliate link — read our policies), and clearly she had it custom made in my favorite color. It’s doubly sweet because we got married in 2014 so technically that is indeed when we became incorporated as The Ruths, but that’s also the year we bought our house (and the year we both finished grad school — it was a kind of a crazy four months in terms of plowing through Big Life Events).

The sign already had a little hanger attached to the back:

So all I had to do was some quick weather proofing. However, this can be tricky since some protective sealants (like urethanes) can cause latex paint to run — and I didn’t know what the sign was originally painted with, so I was nervous (I learned this the hard way in a past project when I applied a clear topcoat that totally ruined my paint job). So I asked a Home Depot employee, and they recommended a Rustoleum Clear Sealant Spray:

I hope it will hold up!

I gave each side two coats, and while I was waiting for the sign to dry between coats I drilled a hole in the fence where I want to hang the sign and put in a small hook that I already had:

Even though the sign is now sealed, I still want to be able to bring it in if the weather gets really bad (read: winter in Boston destroys everything), so I wanted a hook that would make it easy to remove the sign when needed.

The last step was to hang the sign, step back, and admire how much easier things are when someone gifts you something that’s ready to go. Thank you Zoe!!

(Sharing at Create It Thursday, Think and Make Thursday, Weekend Re-Treat Link Party, Pin Junkie Pin Party, Two Uses Tuesday, Tip Me Tuesday, Totally Terrific Tuesday, Create Link Inspire, Whimsy Wednesday, and Your Turn to Shine Link Party)

As you may know, we met and dreamed up the idea for this brilliant blog while working at the same nonprofit organization. So perhaps it is no surprise that some of our co-workers are readers and like to talk to us about the projects that they see on the blog. We’re basically celebrities. But as much as we love talking about us, our favorite is when they ask us questions about their own DIY or decorating projects — it means we’ve somehow tricked them into thinking we’re experts at this (check out the advice that we gave our friend, Stephanie, on decorating her patio).

So we were recently thrilled when a totally boring business meeting was interrupted with a conversation about grout. Our co-worker, who we will anonymize for her protection as “Mecky,” had the following question:

Hi Team Plaster and Disaster,

I need your advice! It looks like the grouting in our 1.5 year old bathroom needs to be redone. There are cracks in it along the corners and my mother is convinced that black mold is imminent. It would be a stretch to call me handy but it seems like this should be something a novice could take on. What do you think?

– “Mecky”

At our ~~desperate insistence~~ polite request, she also provided these pictures of the issue:

Thanks for your question, “Mecky!”

Based on what we’ve read, this seems like a project that a regular homeowner could do. We would both be comfortable taking on this project in our own homes, and neither of us have much experience with tile or grout. But the thing we always consider is whether it is worth our time. Depending on how extensive the cracks are, this could be a very time consuming project. It really depends on how you would like to spend your Saturday.

If you are crazy like us and think this sounds like a great way to spend a Saturday, here what we’ve learned about how to fix this yourself:

How to Repair Cracked Grout

The first step is to remove the old grout surrounding the cracks. It’s a bummer, but very important. According to “the floor elf” (an elf who apparently writes a blog about tiling floors), the new grout or other filler won’t be able to bind to the old grout so it is important to clear it entirely from the sides of the tile, and at least 2/3 of the way down each affected tile, so that it has enough area to form a good bond.

They sell tools specifically for this called “grout saws,” like this one from Amazon (affiliate link – read our policies), which was just $15 when we looked.

You can also use a dremel, which is probably not worth buying just for this project, but is a very handy tool to have around as a homeowner. Sage has this dremel (affiliate link – read our policies) and likes it quite a bit.

Once all the grout is cleared, wipe it down with a damp cloth to remove all of the debris and dust. Then, you are ready to fill it with a new material!

The Great Grout Vs. Caulk Debate

Our extensive internet research has revealed two camps of thought on this: the grouters vs. the caulkers. But the one to choose really depends on what you think caused the problem.

Who says making adult decisions can’t be rock’em sock’em fun? (thanks for making such an awesome toy, Mattel) | Images via Ace Hardware, Digital Media Academy, and Custom Building Products

If you think that the cracks were caused by incorrect grouting to begin with, then you might want to try to fill it with new grout. (You can tell it may have been done poorly if the cracks formed very soon after the tiling was originally done, showing that the grout may have been mixed incorrectly, etc.) The benefits of using grout are that it will be a lot easier to match the color and texture of your current grout, and that if it works, it will be a permanent solution to the issue. The major drawback is that if the cracks were formed by a structural problem, the new grout will just crack again and you’ll be right back where you started from.

If you think grout is the solution, we found this article on SFGate to be a pretty good tutorial for that process. Besides getting the right color, the other big thing to know when you pick a grout is whether you need sanded or nonsanded. Nonsanded is used in spaces smaller than 1/8 inches and sanded in spaces larger than that, so based on your pictures you would probably need nonsanded.

On the other hand, the floor elf is a major proponent of using caulk instead. (Guys, we LIKE this elf. He is hilarious. He is also very authoritative for an elf, and we’ve based at least half this post on his advice.)

Caulking seems to be recommended if the cracks are caused by a shifting in the foundation or the joints where they are applied. Grout has no give-and-take and so will crack if there is movement. This is most likely to happen at corners and the edges between wall and ceiling or floor, so from your pictures it seems like this may be the issue for you. Caulk has flex, and so can maintain its seal through these shifts. However, it will be trickier to match the color and texture to your current grout, so you’ll have to live with a more mismatched look. Also, caulk isn’t a permanent solution, so you might find yourself scraping it out and replacing it every few years.

If you do go the caulking way, we encourage you to read the floor elf’s post on the subject (he is also very responsive in the comments if you have detailed questions). This tutorial by the Family Handyman and this one on Houzz are also good quick overviews on the process — they recommend using a special caulk called “ceramic tile caulk.” This special kind of caulk — which you should be able to find at most home improvement stores — comes in sanded and nonsanded variations just like grout, and again you’ll probably want nonsanded given that the spaces between your tiles are less than 1/8 inches.

We hope that was helpful, “Mecky!” Thanks for your great question. We learned a lot about grout today are definitely trustworthy experts. We’d love to hear what you decide to do, and how it works!