Crazy Grout Matches Like the Blue Dress that went Viral.

6 years ago

last modified: 6 years ago

I need two different grouts and from one company I could find two options to try with the lighter tile and only one good option for the flooring.

The contractor tried both wall tile options on the wall tile. (The sticks looked good against actual tile in the store). And he accidentally tried one of the wall tile samples with the floor tile.

I came home and couldn't figure out what happened because I was sure that he had accidentally tried the darker floor grout with the wall tile and vice versa.

Nope. We don't even have the floor grout.

Both of these samples looked close to the wall tile on the samples. They are both wrong in real life. One is lighter than I want, the other is much too dark.The darker one is so wrong that I can't even believe it's the right grout but apparently it is.

The plan is to closely match each tile. Back to looking for new samples. And getting grout samples is like trying to join a secret society.

In case anyone is keeping track. The first bits of tile went up in this bathroom in December 2016....

Here is a picture...and you can chip grout off the right sample and it matches the grout when you put it on the left sample.

Featured Answer

chispa

6 years ago

I've found that you take the little plastic grout stick sample that best matches the look you want and then pick the next darkest color in the sample box. 95% of the time the result will then match the look you envisioned.

Even better, use one of the premixed grouts, such as FusionPro and eliminate the human variables in mixing up powdered grout.

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Comments (11)

lisaam
6 years ago
Wow, frame of reference is everything.
cpartist
6 years ago
And that is why it all needs to be tested
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gsciencechick
6 years ago
Wow, crazy.
Lars
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
There appears to be a problem with the photography because in the photo where the lower horizontal grout meets the grout in the adjacent tile, it is obvious that they are NOT the same color. I understand that lines appear different depending on whether the background is dark or light, but in this photo, the grout lines from the two side meet and do not blend. If they were the same color, there would not be a break, and it would look like a continuous line.

I'm not saying that the grout is not the same - I am saying that the photograph does not support this.

On very close examination, the grout on the left appears to be very close to the color the tile on the right, and the upper grout line on the left blends directly into the hexagonal tile. The camera could have made some adjustment for light conditions to cause this to happen.
User
6 years ago
Skip any mix up at home cement based grouts and go for the FusionPro or Flexcolor CQ. The advantage of the Fle color is that it is on the shelf st Lowes in smaller amounts to make for easier testing. And the colors are always consistent.
cawaps
6 years ago
Chispa's advice for choosing grout sounds like how I choose thread for sewing projects. The one that matches on the spool always looks too light when you lay a single thread across the fabric (or sew a seam). Darker recedes and isn't as noticeable.
User
6 years ago
Grrrr!
deegw
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
Trying to process the colors on those photos makes my head hurt.
palimpsest
Original Author
6 years ago
Lars, the upper part of the picture is two different photo close ups put next to each other, so there is exposure adjustment to the camera.

The lower part of the picture is single photo where the far left hand and far right hand parts of the single photo, where the black captions are show the same grout. They still look like two grouts to me in the single photo. There are two grouts, but it is the one in the middle of the picture which is different than the one on each end.
ravencajun Zone 8b TX
6 years ago
We used flexcolor cq very good results.

Crazy Grout Matches Like the Blue Dress that went Viral.

chispa

Comments (11)

lisaam

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Crazy Grout Matches Like the Blue Dress that went Viral.

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