Don't take your Tile Grout for Granite

The first thing we did, once we pulled everything out of the kitchen, was to tile the floor. My son assured me that tile is all the rage, and the house would sell better if we put in tile. Having never installed tile, my husband and I felt daunted. But my son got us started on what ended up being a lot of tile in the house, by doing the kitchen floor.

Our adult married kids came home and helped, making quite a party of it. Adult kids are great people to have in your life, everyone should get some.

This of course meant we had to choose the tile. This fell to me. Ironically, I became the Gofer Girl of this show. I say ironically because I am very visually challenged, to say it the nicest way possible. For the first decade of my married life my home decorations consisted of Christmas gifts from my crafty sisters-in-law gave me. Just when they became too busy with their own families to produce tasteful decorations for in-laws, my own daughters grew up overnight into little crafting mavens and took over the job of decorating my home. I can prove it, too. Here are links to their own blogs:

http://benandeirene.blogspot.com

http://allanandmim.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html


You’ve heard of tone deaf (which I’m that, too), well, I’m color deaf. Not color blind, I can tell what the colors are. But deaf to clashing tones.  I mean, I can usually tell if something obviously looks bad, but I have a hard time telling what will look good.

A few years back, we had taken carpet out of our entry way at the front door and put in some tile, about nine squares of it. I made the decision of what color tile to buy based on the dirt in my yard. Truly. I went and scooped some dirt up into a baggy, took that to the store, and bought tile that was the closest match. Not that I was planning on never sweeping the floor, but it seemed practical to make my life easy by installing the tile that would make the dirt less noticeable between sweepings.

You can imagine me in the store then, making the choice of which tile to buy. My son was with me the first trip, and we decided on a splotchy grey granite for the kitchen counters. The splotches included other colors, including a peachy tone and some browns. My son promised us that granite was popular, and tile would be a vastly less expensive way to get granite counters than slabs. At $4-5 per square foot tile I was doubtful. I later learned that slab granite goes for $45-$75 a square foot!

It ended up being my job to match the floor tile and the splashback tile to this granite. I was totally befuddled. I realized I needed help, but didn’t know where to turn. I began scrutinizing the other customers in the aisle. I chose a woman who was very well coifed, extremely neatly and attractively dressed, including matching fingernails. This was a woman I could trust.

“Excuse me,” I pleaded, would she help me with my final decision. And I was right, she was perfect. She knew exactly what would work, and explained why some of my choices wouldn’t work. She quickly narrowed it down to the only possible selection. The floor ended up being a solid grey, that wouldn’t clash with the splotchy, more busy pattern of the counters. Yet it wasn’t too dark, and had just a little rust color (my nod to coordinating with the outside dirt), that also pulled out the lighter colors of the counters. The splashbacks were darker than the floor, nicely framing the kitchen.

I did love having tile counters. You can set hot pans and dishes with wild abandon to your heart’s content. There is a glassy richness when they are cleared, shined and cleaned. A veteran clutterer (someday I’ll regale you with my theory on stackers and clearers), it gave me a passion for keeping the counters absolutely clear. It was a little more work, cleaning out between the tiles from time to time, but not to the point that it was a big deal to me. We set them right next to each other, with hardly any space between the tiles. I liked the continuity that gave and feel it minimized the cleaning.

Of course that brings up the subject of grout, which rhymes with grouch, and with good reason. After spending an hour in the store with my tile, matching the grout with the brown splotches, I found that the color on the box resembled the actual color of grout on the floor about as much as a fetus resembles a baby. Not much.

The color on the box was clearly brown, and the grout turned out to be much lighter and pinkish. Thankfully it did tie in with some lighter colors in the granite, but not to the credit of the grout makers. Like Frank Church and Emma, the grout did no harm, but not to the credit of the grout manufacturers.

When I complained about this to a store guy, he said “Well, the amount of water you add, really makes a difference.” So that's how the manufacturers absolve themselves of any responsibility, leaving apparently no real way to tell what color of grout you are getting except to buy a five pound box and experiment. No doubt, not once, but again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again.

If your reality includes working with men, who want to get the job DONE, I recommend making very neutral grout choices, and making peace with however it turns out. There ARE more important things in the Universe. Think of world peace, the hole in the Ozone, and the fact that you are alive today instead of dead. There are worse things than disappointing grout.

Which I’m not saying I am disappointed with my grout, but I can see how a person could be. Ours turned out to coordinate, but if we didn’t have such a variagated pattern in the granite, there may have been a different ending to our story. Just a little caveat for unwary grout seeking persons.

Joy in the Journey