Filthy terracotta tiles on kitchen floor - what to do?

[Oodle]

We bought our house last year and have been slowly doing it up as cheaply as possible as we have very little spare cash. We're getting there, but the kitchen floor is horrible. The tiles are terracotta but are filthy with dark, dirty grout and paint splashes that won't come out despite scrubbing and even light sanding. The kitchen is dark and we had thought about painting them with a pale-ish floor paint - would that work or be a disaster? Or could we attempt to clean them properly? If so, any ideas how? We can't afford to replace them at the mo. Thanks in advance!

have you tried a brillo pad?

no but maybe i should! thanks. What about the grout though?

Before you try the brillow pad try using soda crystals and a scrubbing brush. It may take a while but a strong soda crystals solution works wonders on lots of things and doesn't damage.

I have cleaned tiled floors very successfully before using muriatic acid. You can buy it at diy places.

It's nasty stuff, though (hence it removes paint splashes etc), so be very careful when you're using it. I'm always in wellies and huge gloves and I rinse the floor at least 3 times with plain water after I've used it.

You can apply it with a cheapo mop that you can throw out afterwards.

Brilliant! Thanks so much for the great tips, I will give them all a go.

We were advised (haven't done it yet - ours aren't that bad but need resealing) to hire a sander and use a brush on it to clean them, and then there are various stages involved in re-sealing them.

I found lots of info online on specialised sites which sell products for terracotta tiles.

I would recommend doing it properly now, because ours are really porous and stain if you drop any juice, or milk or vinegar (or wine/beer etc) or fruit on them.

I second the recommendation to clean and seal them properly. We have a terracotta tiled floor in our kitchen/diner (rented house). The owner prior to our landlords laid the floor, but didn't seal it - and it looks quite bad now. As pp have said, anything that gets dropped leaves a mark - washing powder is quite a bad one for this.

I will be using some of the recommendations to see if I can get our floor to look a little better.

I second barkeeper's friend, which is very gentle and cleans all sorts of things really well. It's under-estimated, in my opinion!
Seal once cleaned.

I did it! Thanks everyone - a combo of barkeepers friend, grout cleaner and scrubbing did the job. I recommend getting knee pads - hideous but kept me going for the 6 hours it took!