Ten Blades and a Rubber Mallet: Grout Day

Day sixty-four. The tiles have been beautiful and unfinished for weeks — today their joints got filled, and the bathrooms became waterproof in fact rather than theory.

The scary preamble. Before grout: remove the rainbow-colored leveling clips wedged between every tile — with the cheerful warning ringing in our ears that wrong removal chips corners or pulls small tiles off entirely. The technique that works: one decisive sideways strike with a rubber mallet per clip — commitment, not caution. For clips seized tight, a blade slipped alongside scrapes them free. Then the box-cutter marathon: carving hardened mortar squeeze-out from between the tiles. Blade discipline was the productivity lever — a dulling blade degrades instantly, so we changed them shamelessly: ten blades, one full cartridge, one day. And only clean what stands proud of the tile face; the joint’s interior disappears under grout anyway.

Two grouts, by zone. With my cousin Changmin — a plastering professional — making us three:

• Ivory cement grout for the vertical and dry zones: kitchen walls, bathroom and bath wall fields. Rubber gloves, bold swipes across the joints, wipe-back after set.
• Epoxy grout where water pools: both bathroom floors and the masonry tub’s interior — the serious chemistry for the serious zones.

Paint’s opening act. In parallel, the whole interior got its pre-paint lockdown: every timber post and beam, door frame, and even the new air conditioners sealed under masking and cover film. The first walls rolled white before day’s end — the two-coat doctrine’s opening moves, with the white putty seams vanishing into unified walls exactly as the test promised.

The house is in its last costume change.