My Favorite Bubbles

Tiny, Mister, Dubble... Fond as I am of all the different kinds of bubbles, my favorite is the Scrubbing Bubble.

I haven't found anything these tiny, hard-working guys can't do.  They already keep my shower clean, and the tub, sinks, toilet, and fixtures as well. Yesterday afternoon, I set it in my head to clean the disaster area that is the downstairs bathroom, and got out the Scrubbing Bubbles to clean the tile on the walls, and the other porcelain features I mentioned.  It took no time at all.  It's a small room.  I couldn't get past how awful the floor looked, though.

The floor in that downstairs bathroom- well, in ALL the bathrooms, actually, has been a source of upset for me since the day we moved into this house in 2007.  They're white tile, with little black tiles set in, and the kicker: white grout.  That white grout has looked dingy, as though it's had a century of grime mashed in, since Day One.  I watched the fellow who did the tiling put in bright white grout.  I even saw the pride he took in how nice and white it was, and his anguish/ire as the other guys working on the house tracked in on those floors with the beautiful, bright white grout and turned the grout to that disheartening grime-color.  He offered to Dremel out the grout and redo it, and threaten the life of any of the guys who'd dirty up the brand new grout, and in some spots where things were spilled before it was sealed, that's just what he did, but at that point, we just wanted to get out of the Domicile of the Damned and into our own house, so we said we'd deal with the mess later, after the crew was gone.

And I did try.  I tried using baking soda and vinegar and a toothbrush.  I tried using the same mixture and a grout brush.  I tried dumping peroxide on the floor and working it into the grout.  Nothing worked.  All those remedies would make the rest of the floor cleaner, but that grout looked like it'd been in a grimy subway for centuries. 

It's been like this so long, I've stopped caring about the dingy grout.  I've certainly stopped trying to clean it up.  So this afternoon, it was nothing more than a 'can't get any worse' attempt, when I squirted a line of Scrubbing bubbles on the floor, focusing on the grout.  I took a swipe with a microfiber cloth, and mmmmmmwwwwwhaaaaaaaat?!  That dang ol' grout practically sparkled!  I sprayed the whole floor and let it sit for twenty-five minutes or so.  Gave the floor a once-over, in small sections, with a regular scrub-brush (the grout brush was all the way upstairs!), then wiped with the microfiber, and in less than a half hour after I started scrub-brushing and wiping away, that floor looks newer than it did when it was new.  Almost perfect!

I have two more bathroom floors to spruce up, now.  Instead of resenting this, I kind of can't wait to get started. 

Those Scrubbing Bubbles are quite fantastic.  I wish they worked as well on everything else as they do on hard surfaces in the bathroom.  Congress, I'm talking to you.  But that's a rant for another day.  Right now, I'm going to go stare at my nice, clean, sparkling grout, and just smile and smile.