Color Catastrophe

I just about had a heart attack while grouting the shower tile Sunday. I had spend hours selecting the perfect grout color, because it can make or break the tile. You can see how very different the sample mosaic looks with various grout colors.

In the end, I had to special order the non-sanded grout and matching caulk in the color I chose. Shipping took longer than expected and held up the rest of the bathroom, but I felt it was worth it. Until the moment Jeff brought me the freshly mixed grout and I began to apply it. Panic! It looked like baby poo! And that is not an exaggeration (or a phrase I use often; we usually prefer more elegant words like stool or feces or bowel movement, but in that moment, it was most definitely baby poo)!

I frequently see subtleties and nuances in color that Jeff doesn't, but even he agreed it looked pretty awful. This iPhone photo doesn't begin to capture the terrible color, and we were in no mood for pictures anyhow.

Now, I know from research that wet grout always looks much darker than dry. I know that people often initially dislike the grouted look after seeing tile bare for so long. I knew I had to let the grout dry and cure and then adjust to the new look before forming an honest opinion. And I held it together simply because I had no other choice. The grout had to go on that day; I didn't have time to pick out another color; I couldn't return the special order; and I couldn't very easily wipe all that fresh baby poo out of the joints even if I wanted to. But it was killing me that my hard fought tile job was being ruined by poopy grout! It made the blue-green tile look washed out, the taupe tile look purple, and the travertine look blah. I can't emphasize enough how terrible it was!

And then it dried. And then it cured. And then it was lovely. What a relief! Just another saga in the DIY adventures of Jeff and Sarah.