Nobody really likes to admit that their house is messy. We live in a little bubble of perfection where we are each perfect and there is nothing we need to do to improve ourselves or our homes. Rrrriiiiight? Wrong! I am far from perfect and cooking and cleaning are not my strengths (or something I enjoy doing).
For a long time I have had a dirty little shower secret. To describe my shower I would use the following adjectives: disgusting, embarrassing, smelly, and hazardous.
I tried my best to clean it. I used bleach. I used a powered tooth brush. I used elbow grease. I used non toxic solutions. I used boiling hot water. Pretty much….I tried everything I could think of. And nothing worked.
You see, several years ago my husband re-caulked the shower. Apparently you are supposed to use a THIN bead of caulk. Ooops. Our caulk was thick and it became gross, and the grossness spread to the grout. And that’s pretty much when alligator tears form because there is no turning back. That combined with a 12 year old shower means we had a huge mess on our hands.
My husband doesn’t see well without glasses and he swears he never noticed the shower. When he is in the bathroom with his glasses on the shower doors are normally closed. For the longest time I….what’s the word…..nagged…..that we needed to do something about our shower. Then I gave up and just lived with grossness.
Well, we finally got around to doing something about THIS:
And another picture to make you cringe:
You see, yes, I did kind of give up on cleaning the shower once we made the appointment to have someone come clean it. We knew we were in over our heads for this project and my husband used Kudzu to find a professional to take care of this problem for us. It took a professional 4.5 hours to take out and replace all of the grout and caulk in our shower.
I did a happy dance when I saw the final result. Can you believe it?
This was an expensive project. We paid $475 for this to be fixed for us. You see, coupons are great and by combining coupons and sales on our every day purchases we are able to save and budget for household repairs and Disney Cruise vacations. We talk about these expenses in our monthly budget meetings and they are not a shock when we have to pay for the big bills. Sometimes calling a professional is mandatory, as it was in our case.
For what it’s worth, the tile expert who came to our house said this:
- Use Soft Scrub with bleach on the tiles on the wall
- Use Soft Scrub without bleach on the basin since it can yellow with bleach use.
- * In no way do I endorse Soft Scrub, but I will be trying it out to see if it works soon!
On Friday I have the task of sealing this new grout, and between now and then I need to clean (I mean CLEAN) our shower doors. Speaking of….do you have any tips for cleaning soap scum from shower doors?
Leandrea is a married mom of two girls, ages 13 and 12, living in Atlanta, GA. She is passionate about helping people save money one coupon at a time. Read more
Whew Tonya! It makes me feel better that someone else has dealt with this too. I will have to see if I can find a steam cleaner while I am garage saling tomorrow. That would be very frugal. Good luck doing this project all over again. A little bit of music and it will be over before you know it!
We had this SAME problem a couple years ago….we had it cleaned also….but it was an all day project for me and two of my friends. We took the doors off while the husband of one of my friends cleaned out the caulk. We used just basic steam to clean the doors. I have one of those steamers. We just used that and a scouring pad….the shower looked great for several months….but if you don’t stay on top of it…which I didn’t…it will get the same….so, its been a couple of years and it is time to have the all day project again! 🙂