When we moved into our Brookside home, we had only one bathroom upstairs for the entire family. It was a decent enough size to share while the kids were little, but oh my was it unattractive! It was an overdose of black and white!
Now, I like black and white, and the shower tile was good. It, at least, felt in keeping with the style of the home. However, when it came to the floor, countertops, backsplash, sink and toilet everything just went wrong.
At some point in time, a previous owner had installed a black toilet, black hexagon shaped (oh no! no! no!) sink, and had installed black granite 12×12 inch tiles on the floor, countertops and backsplash and had used white grout. It was all pretty terrible but the white grout against those black tiles really took it over the edge for me.
I felt like I was in a bad 80’s music video. It was all black and white grid patterns everywhere!
This terrible photo is unfortunately the only proof of the previous tile. The pic was taken post floor project. You have to use your imagination here but the floors used to look exactly like the countertops with the white grout.
After we built our master bath we tackled the 80’s flavor of this bathroom. Catalyst Construction tore out the countertops, sink and toilet. We replaced the countertops and sink with a clean white quartz and rectangle shaped sink from Premier Surfaces with a sleek and modern Grohe faucet. We added a white subway tile backsplash, and the toilet was swapped out for a white Kohler model. Unfortunately the floors were something that we could not tackle due to our budget at the time. I knew that the floors would be staying prior to starting the renovation so I started brainstorming ways to camouflage them. Perhaps a big area rug? But then I discovered grout colorant!
I purchased this grout colorant from The Tile Shop. They have a wide variety of colors to choose from. I went with Black Onyx to match the floor tiles. Once painted, the floor kind of disappeared. It, at the very least, didn’t give you an instant headache as you walked in the room like it had previously!
I would still like to address the floor in this room at some point (future project!) but, for now, it really isn’t that bad. It also was far, far less expensive than changing out the entire floor!
With just a little elbow grease and time, this DIY project truly changed this floor for the better!
The bathroom looks so much better! I kind of even like the shower tile and the floor does kind of just disappear now. Which is great!
Great tip. Thx