Grouting

To finish off most of the floor, the next step is grouting the tile. I did a pass of scraping thinset last weekend and revealed a few loose tiles. This weekend, I immediately do another pass of scraping tiles and find a few more loose ones. I also find a few that get removed when Shop Vac the floor to get all of the thinset crumbs out after scraping the grout joints. I mix up another batch of thinset and set in the handful of loose tiles. That takes about 24 hours to cure. When that cures, I apply a coat of 511 Porous Plus sealer as a grout release. This is used to prevent the gray grout from staining the tile. The problem is that the sealer seems to discolor some of the tiles so I’m not sure I’ll use this again for the 2nd sealer coat.

Scraped out grout lines.

While the repaired tiles and sealer cures, back to the woodwork to keep that moving along. For the beadboard I’m getting past the shellac part, so now I’m applying Waterlox to the pieces. The Waterlox goes on pretty easily with just wiping on with a rag. It requires 3 coats and after the first coat it’s a little shiny so I may opt for a matte coat for the 3rd coat.

Applying Waterlox.

Boards with Waterlox applied.

For the grout I go with Prism grout. I guess this isn’t the traditional choice in that it’s not a true sanded or unsanded grout, but I feel like it gets really good reviews and is supposed to be easy to apply. At this point I want to make sure the last piece of the tile install goes smoothly so I go with that. I mix up the grout and set a timer for 30 minutes and start the application.

About to install grout.

The installation goes as expected. I did read one review of the grout that it squirted out of the grout lines too easily but I found no issues with installing it. It was just a matter of getting everything done in 30 minutes which was a challenge just from the physical aspect.

Before wiping off with the grout float.

Squeeqing off the grout with the float.

I make my way around the room pressing the grout into the cracks and then wiping it off with the float. After the grout sets in about 30 minutes I start the process of wiping things off with a sponge. I let things set for another 3 hours and then do a few more passes of wiping off the haze.

All done putting down grout. Now just cleaning up.

All done.