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Monday, March 4, 2013

Kitchen Back Splash Part 2: Grout and Seal

Alright, now that your tile back splash is all set and has been sitting for 24 hours you are ready to finish! Its easy from here :)  If you did not see my first post on how to lay the tile you can read it HERE.

The next step is grout. We bought a premixed grout from Home depot in grey. It was about $10 and HERE is the link so you know what brand we used :)

Grouting is pretty basic...and to tell you the truth I found it easiest to just use my hands!..Wear gloves! :) In these pictures I used a trowel that was padded (so it doesn't scratch) to spread the grout, but the grout would just plop off and and I would pick it up with my hands anyways..so soon I gave up and only used my hands ;)
I had never done this before but it was a simple fill-in-the-gaps procedure that I didn't find hard. Work in small sections because the grout does dry fast. Spread the grout all around, filling in all the cracks. Then take a wet sponge and wipe it off! The first time you wipe it off it doesn't need to be perfect..you will still see a little bit of the sand and grout on the tile. You do not want to scrub it clean yet..it will need to dry a little more first!
Once you have wiped it off, move on to the next little section (I preferred  doing about a foot at a time). Spread the grout, fill in all the cracks, then wipe it off quickly with a wet sponge. Do this over all your tile :)









 This is about as clean as you want it when you first wipe it down, you can still see a little 
bit of the grout smeared across my tile, but its mostly clean. 

Once you have finished all your tile, wait about 30 minutes to an hour for all the grout to dry. Then go back over it with your wet sponge and scrub your tile clean! Now the tile is basically done! You will still want to seal your grout to help it stay clean but you will want to wait about another day before you do this..just to make sure your grout is 100% dry before doing it! 
Sealing is super easy..the best and fastest way is to buy a sealer that you can spray over all the tile like this one we bought form Home Depot. Spray it all over your clean and dry tile, rub it around with a sponge. Let it sit for about 5 minutes, then wipe it off! For best results do two coats :)

You are done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Enjoy your beautiful new back-splash! :)




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