Crying - please help with floor grouting

[Loussa]

Hi. I have just bought a new house (first time buyer). Spent more than I can afford (well close to) on a brand new kitchen. We went for limestone effect porcelain tiles (matte).

Ive had to be without my karcher for two months - got lost in the move. Full disclosure we have 2 golden retrievers. I’ve done my best with the flash speed mop but the floors have been trashed.

Gave it a good clean but the grout looks
disgusting still. I’ve told DH not to walk the dogs in the woods but he has ignored me. Dh has called me not to get fixated.

How can I get them back? Do I need to regrout?

You need help.

This place is going batshit crazy. Against the law for a man to walk the dogs and let them get muddy.....

When we moved into our new house we had flooring put down. We have dogs and they are active and love to get dirty on a walk. When asked about putting grouting in we specifically asked for them not to have grout lines between the tiles for this reason. Its all a learning experience but ffs stop with the abuse claims.

My suggestion is to heed the many suggestions of having the grout changed to a darker colour AND maybe have an outside hot/cold water tap/shower installed so hubby can clean the dogs before they come in the house. It may reduce the need to clean the floor so much but brilliant white will not stay brilliant white for too long regardless.

@TheyAreAllTheSame Mud does not "ruin" a tiled floor. The OP just made a mistake with the colour of the grout - dogs or no dogs white grout does not wear well on floors, especially if you have dogs. We have grey grout on the bathroom floor and black grout on the kitchen floor for the reason.

It's annoying but not the end of the world.

Same. It looks fine to me, OP. You need to let it go, for your sanity and your happy marriage (and your dogs’ enjoyment of the woods walks).

"Intentional infliction of emotional distress is a civil tort that occurs when a defendant acts in a way that recklessly or intentionally causes severe emotional harm to a victim." You may not agree with it, but that is the law and if behaviour causes the OP to end up in tears then yes the DH is breaking the law

This is a hugely damaged mindset.

OP - I completely sympathise. I have exactly the same. I used to scrub it with a scrubbing brush on a stick every couple of months to get it cream/white again but now I rarely bother. It's an awful lot of grouting to keep clean and v hard work over a large area with a scrubbing brush.
I'll probably do it thoroughly when I put the house up for sale but other than that, Ive made my peace with it

Severe emotional harm. Give me strength.

The dogs are a red herring. White grout on the floor will always get very mucky and stained. We don't have a dog and had white grout on our bathroom floor in our last house and it looked like yours very quickly. Nothing would get it clean. I eventually went over it with a dark grey grout tube thing. Was fine after that 😀. You can't go dark grey but you could stain/cover the grout a similar colour to your tiles. People will say that you need to take the grout out and redo it but I found covering it worked fine. It didn't come off while we were living there (at least a year) although it will probably need touching up over time.

...or her crying is excessive compared to the facts and maybe suggests mh problems or a condition like ocd?

If she were to cry if he didn't spend each evening with her would it be abusive of him to ever go out in the evening?

Op, I think the grout in what you call your ‘yuck’ picture looks nice.

Alarmingly so. I feel sorry for the poster who has been through such trauma as to make her see the world
this way.

Barkeepers Friend and a soft toothbrush - miracle worker.

Each case needs to be judged on its merits. If the DH was out at the pub instead of for eg work, then possibly yes particularly if there were young children he was abandoning

Its winter, the dogs are going to get muddy. We used towels down on the floor in the kitchen when we had retrievers. We also had an outside tap connected to the hot water sink tap which was a godsend. The floor that looks dirty is in no way trashed. It'll look better come summer.

You’re seriously crying over that?!

We also had an outside tap connected to the hot water sink tap which was a godsend

This is indeed the holy grail of mud magnet dog ownership!

Newspaper on the floor is great to soak up mud and water in winter. We seem to have a permanent carpet of newspaper by the front door at the moment due to all the rain and mud.

This is insane.

As someone who insisted on light grout when tiling my kitchen floor no matter what my husband ( an experienced builder with over 20 years in trade ) you will learn to live with this. A worn tiled floor actually gives the house a more lived in cosy feel. I also have three dogs and two cats, my dogs are small so they pick up more dirt and spread out on the floor. I wash my floors once a week with the vileda spin mop gives it a good clean. Spray mop every day if needed. Once in a while when i have the energy i use the HG grout cleaner, you add to water spread it all over the area you want clean and then rinse off, takes time but worth it and i admire my nice bright grout for a while until it goes back to normal 😝i grew up in a house like @GCAcademic, mother goes on her hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor every week, and i was a bit like that when i moved in with my now husband. It caused a good few rows, honestly life is to short my dear, a house should be lived in some days its chaos and some days its nice and tidy, thats how it goes, i love my dogs too much and now just roll with it when they make a mess, i would never tell my husband not to walk them somewhere. Not too sure where you love but here in Ireland its wet and miserable most of the time, kitchen floor is going to get messy

Some bonkers replies.

OP, it's a lovely floor. It's lovely because you are living your life in it. It's not unhygienically dirty. It's not unsightly. It's the sign of people busy living their life in their lovely new house.
In the same vein, don't keep your posh Denby for best - get it out and live the life.
Don't save your Chanel for one night a year - stick it on and live the life.

Sounds like an abuser's charter to me. "Do as I say, exactly as I say, or I'll be upset and you'll be an ABUSER"

Hot water tap outside is the answer

You sound like you have been on a low quality course on abuse and now think of yourself as an expert.

I work with victims of abuse and your responses on this thread really show a lack of understanding of what genuine abuse in the real world is.

I can’t see anything wrong with the ‘yuck’ bit of flooring. I think OP would need smelling salts if she saw the state of my kitchen today!