How to remove paint from grout and tile
I spent today getting back to square one in the laundry room.
Not square 1 really– just back to where I was before I spilled a half gallon of paint on my floor, spread it out by using the floor as a paint tray, letting it dry and trying to scrap the paint out of the grout. (Didn’t work.)
I had some orange paint stripper in my garage so I thought I’d give that a try. Spread it all over with my chemically protected gloved hands — and let it sit for 30 min.
Then I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed with a steel bristled brush.
It looked like it was working so I cleaned up that goop with paper towels and then put a little more orange stuff on the spots that I’d missed. This is the point I got excited that it was working!
Scrubbed and wiped some more and rinsed and wiped and repeated a few more times. YES!
My house smells like an orange juice and chemical plant. But — DogGonit my tile and grout are clean! Protected my lungs, eyes and hands with serious gear — ’cause I’d like to keep them working well for as long as possible!
I still HATE the grey grout with this tile and am going to change it. I just didn’t want to change it with globs of high gloss paint.
Has anyone had any luck painting grout a color they WANTED to paint it? That’s what I’m planning!
Not creepy at all. That’s why I put these posts on this here blog — to help other’s learn from my mistakes. LOL (Not only from my mistakes but that’s a big component to learning so…)
I hope it isn’t creepy to get a comment on a post this old … but I just want to THANK YOU for this! Found on pinterest, I’m almost done stripping the latex paint off of my 1960s tile floor. (previous home owners had questionable DIY techniques lol). Cheers! RH
I purchased a condo last year. The bathroom tile seems to have been painted with white wall paint. When I step out of the shower onto the rug and then next forget and step on the floor where my feet are covered with white dots of paint. I’ve used a steel wire tile brush but still get little white dots on my feet and on my black bathroom scale. Any ideas what to do?
For small grouting areas like this, get a grout saw for a few bucks. It looks sort of like a screwdriver with a box cutter blade on the end and you can remove all the old grout in about an hour. Not a lot of fun but a it’s good cardio workout and then you can put in whatever color you want without having to try to stain or paint it.
Thanks Colleen, I’ll look into that.