How To Paint Grout DIY

Another thing that really improved the look of our kitchen face lift was painting the grout white. I knew I wasn't going to replace the counter tops right now, but I sincerely did not like the way they looked as they were. Which was like this:

This is a practice bouquet we made for Maddie's wedding when we decided to do the flowers ourselves. Because we are crazy. But not so crazy that we didn't practice. You can also see the old cabinet hardware.

What I did like about the tile counters was that you can put hot things on them without worry. Like right off the stove or out of the oven hot. So I didn't want to replace them with laminate or any other cheap option.

If you want to do the same thing, here are the steps.

1. Clean the grout really, really, really well so that the paint will stick to it. Paint doesn't stick to anything greasy and grout is porous so it has to be cleaned a lot. We used this stuff that I got at Home Depot. I always feel like I should mention here that I don't have any sponsorships or affiliate links or anything...this is just what I used.

Here is a photo of that step. And the fussy wallpaper. I am so happy that Springbrook Ranch is completely wallpaper free now. Until I wallpaper my stair risers.

I think what's going on here is that I had started painting, because I like to jump to the fun part, and it wasn't sticking well so we had to go back and clean again. The stuff is kind of caustic so wear gloves.

2. We painted with this

It's called Polyblend Grout Renew. I used a small old paint brush to put it on. It took two coats to get really opaque. Dry time is pretty quick, by the time I finished the first coat on one area I could go back and do the second coat on another area. It took two bottles and I had about 1/3 of a bottle left over. 

After that was dry we sealed it with this:

And that is pretty much it. I actually like my counters now.

Here are a couple other tips if you are going to do this project. When you paint the grout it is nearly impossible to keep the paint from getting on the tiles a little bit along the edge of the grout. At first we were worried about that and tried to wipe it off with Q-tips (super annoying), but after awhile I got lazy and stopped worrying about it. It turns out once it is all dry and done you can't even tell.

Also, I continued to clean my counters each day with counter cleaner and a rag. After a couple of months there were a few places where the grout paint had flaked off. Luckily I had some leftover paint and sealer so it just took me a minute to touch those places up. If you do this to your counters I strongly suggest keeping your leftover paint and sealant, or even buying extra if you don't have leftovers, so you can touch up if you ever need to.

And that's it! Good luck fellow DIYers!