Repairing Grout

I love the idea of brick floors, but I am torn on whether I would do them again. I certainly would NOT put them in a bathroom again. They are in our powder bath and mom’s bathroom as well as at each entrance/exit that has a door to the exterior. My first mistake was that I did not by the sealed version of brick. You could get them pre-sealed. I bought the unsealed because I thought the sealed were too shiny. I tried to seal the brick after installation and did many many many many coats, but it was worthless. They are so porous and it did no good.

The installation of the brick floors is when our tile guy got up and left us. He quit. It was too hard. I ended up grouting some of the brick and it was a pain! Especially since I bought the unsealed brick. After grouting, I had to use muriatic acid to clean the grout off the brick. Another pain!

Immediately after moving in, pieces of our grout were falling out! This was only where we had the brick flooring. The cause could be anything… joint too wide, using the muriatic acid, poor installation job… who knows. I was learning to live with it and thought it made the house look old to have it falling apart (haha). But I wanted to try and fix it.

When I first started noticing the grout damage, I looked up how to repair grout. I read that you could not simply just patch the hole in the new grout as it wouldn’t adhere properly. If I wanted to replace grout, I had to remove the old grout. I took this as possibly meaning that I could remove just enough that touched the length of a tile and put new grout down the length of the tile. Surely I didn’t have to remove ALL the grout in the entire floor?I ended up just vacuuming the "holes" and didn't remove any more grout.

Dirty in Hole

Clean

I had left over grout so I mixed some and patched the holes. If this method didn’t work then I would chisel out the old grout around the one tile and see how that works.

So far, so good and no more holes in the grout. I still expect more holes to top up, as they always do, but I had over 20 holes in the grout, so this is a good improvement.

When it started to dry, I noticed that the grout color was not matching! I guess I didn’t mix it properly? No clue. The swatch color matched the color of my floor.

I have no holes, but there is white grout now! I then bought the Mapei Grout Refresh in my correct color and painted the new grout. I may have mixed the grout wrong, but I thought I could fix it by painting over it. The color on the bottle matched my grout when I held it up to the floor. But it did not change the color of the grout! I even pulled away my buffet in the foyer to see if the untouched grout was lighter. It wasn't.

My guess is that our grout has gotten that dirty over the years, or the sealant did something?? Still not sure. I bought a new sealant that I was going to try and use, but now I don’t want to seal in the color imperfection!

I’m going to see how the grout refresh holds up on these thick grout lines and go from there. I may even rub some dirt in it! I'm happy I have no more holes, so if I had to choose one imperfection over the other, I choose no holes. 

Time to get the grout dirty!

Brick Tile

To go with the old feel of the house, I used brick pavers as tile in certain areas. 

I used it at all the entrances, in the Powder Bath and in Mom’s bath and closet.

I wanted to space it wide, so I bought 3/8” spacers; as wide as I could get them. 

I chose a brick pattern with 1/3 offset.

I bought the pavers unsealed because I wanted them to be rustic. But I still had to seal them so that grouting would be easier and not soaked up into the brick.

The color of grout was difficult to choose. I went with my gut and chose Mapei Ivory. 

And it couldn’t have been better. It ties in the wall color and the wood floor.

Because the brick tile was done first, and in heavy foot traffic areas, we had a lot of cracked tile. 

Two areas had thin-set applied to the entire subfloor surface, then grooved. There were less cracked tiles on those areas. Then the other areas just had the tile back-buttered. These had more cracks. But I was told the cracks would stop when the grout was put in. I just made sure I was at the house less and avoided stepping on the tile.

Our tile guy started grouting and left quickly after because it was frustrating. So, I took a stab at it and did an okay job. It was hard to get the grout up high enough like I wanted, and still trying to keep the brick surface clean.

I am so excited for the brick floors. Some people refer to it as “Split Brick.” It definitely gives the house that old vibe that I am going for.

Our tile guy laid the brick and grouted it, but he quit our job before he could clean the brick. I had a 10-day window to work with before the grout was really set into the paver. I tried multiple chemicals and non-chemicals trying to get the grout off. Only one thing worked! I have decided to write a separate post about it here.

After the brick was cleaned, I felt so much relief. I moved on to other projects while my mom took the duty of sealing the brick. She tackled one section at a time. I covered all the brick with paper dropcloth to prevent red clay marks on the freshly cleaned brick. The mud hall had nice orange tracks on it before I cleaned it.

I tried many different sealers. Even after cleaning the brick, it still dried a lighter color. I like how when it was wet, the colors were darker. 

Yet, I didn’t want the glossy wet look some sealers provide. I found a product at Lowes that was a sealer and enhancer.

At $45 a bottle for a small bottle, this stuff was liquid gold. But it achieved the look and protection.

Mom used a small roller to apply three rows at a time. It goes on milky and you wope if off after 3-5 minutes.

I really like the end result. These floors took a lot of work, but they are worth it!

Masonry Complete

I posted a little sneak peek on Facebook Tuesday, that said I thought our mason job was two days away from completion. Guess what? They finished today! Two days exactly.

We started installing brick on May 22nd. I was told this would be a two-week job.. EASY!

We did not finish until June 17th!

It was not all the mason's fault. We did run out of brick. And when we ordered more, not all of it was from the same run and we risked it not matching. We then had to wait to locate more from the same run.

We lost a couple days because those deliveries of brick were late in the day and not 5:30AM. Other jobs had priority I guess.

It was fun to see the pattern the "brickers" worked in because their was no logic!

I would come home and be surprised at what was done. I couldn't predict it.

I learned so much during this process, like I do with each process. Those brick ties that are on the wall help the brick not ever lean in or away from the wall. There is also a gap to cover up the imperfections of walls.

 
Now, the brick pictures differently. Up close, it looks like it should. Some dark, some light, some red. But from the street, it looks brown. I like it. It's pretty neat how it is like a chameleon.

A couple of days the crew stayed late. One of those nights I was so surprised! They had started building the patio!

I had been working so hard to make sure this was not forgotten. The footer was not poured at the same time as the house. This was mainly because the surveyor did not draw it on the lot layout as elevated. It was drawn at the same height as the driveway. There would be no need for footers. However, I did not want steps immediately off the exterior door down to a patio level with the ground. The footers were dug and poured in one day. Then they got to moving on laying the block.

The front of the house was last to get to.

One reason we ran out of brick was because the porches had brick all the way down. It's wasteful to have brick to the footer and then have concrete come fill the porch and you don't see it.

We bought 4-inch block to use, but the crew only used it on the back patio.

Now we have leftover block!

While we were waiting on locating brick from the same run, we had our stone delivered and we started working on that. I was bummed it was in boxes that I couldn't peek in to.

Our stone would be on the back screened-in porch and the "tower."

The back porch might seem silly because no one sees it but us and our guests, But I think that is special for our guests to be the only ones to see it.

When it came to the stone, I had special instructions. The stone would not be dry stacked. I wanted to have wide joints. I found a picture in a magazine for a local store's add. I took that picture with me to choose the type of stone. 

I picked out a man-made stone, Horizon Stone. The stone shape is 19th Century. The color is Shenandoah. I was so nervous the color would not coordinate with the brick. Turns out, it was perfect!

The back porch took two days and the front tower took two days. It was funny to see the masons using cake decorator tools to put the mortar between the stones.

I love the front tower so much that I am redoing my landscape plan so that I do not block the details all around it.

Our Architectural Committee approved us not having a crawlspace but told us we had to make it appear as if we were a cralwspace by having foundation vents.

I spray-painted the blocks black and the masons left spaces to put vents. Instead of buying $75 irons vents, I made vents out of brick.

I saw it done on a townhouse already in our neighborhood and liked it!

The last of the brick to get finished was over the garage. We had to get special "speed arches" to hold the brick.

Most door and window openings have straight lentils that hold the brick up.

I was so excited to see the garage doors get finished.

Now that the brick is complete, it's time to pressure wash it clean.

I now can't say we are the "blue" house when people ask. The brick has covered up all the ICF framing so that it looks like a normal house.