A little home repair

Those who know me well, know I am pretty handy around the house. There was this issue that was really nagging at me. We have marble baseboards. The grout at the wall/marble junction was horribly and unevenly stained and also of different colors throughout the living room, dining room, hallway, etc. This entire area is wallpapered and perhaps even some of the staining is from the wallpaper adhesive getting embedded in the grout. The result was that the grout line appeared to either be filthy or was moldy. I doubt if the grout was ever really cleaned over the years, especially over the 3 years the apartment sat vacant. Our maid Tin spent a good deal of time trying to clean the grout and while it did look better, it still looked pretty bad and I couldn't stand it any longer.

At a store that sells art supplies we purchased 3 tubes of an acrylic paint: white, mustard and burnt umber. I mixed the white with just hints of the other colors and came up with a perfect color to paint over the grout lines and viola! Such a huge improvement. I am more than halfway done working around the room.

My preference would have been to use something that would be completely waterproof, but this paint had he proper pigment level to hide the "dirt" and will hold up well to either a damp cloth or to vacuuming quite nicely. If I end up needing to repaint, I know exactly what to buy if I run out.