Amongst my Favorite Things: Sonic Scrubber

D and I have been sporadically, and yet constantly, remodeling the little shack on the prairie for over 4 years now.  We work on it as funds and enthusiasm allow and frequently find ourselves lacking either or both.  But one of the things we (and by "we" I totally mean "he") accomplished some time ago, to my great delight, is the remodeling of our home's single bathroom.

And it is beauteous.  D single-handedly demolished the dire toilet, vanity, vinyl tiles and painted-over tin-tile wainscoting and wallpaper and rebuilt the bathroom around the only thing left - the old cast iron tub, which is in decent shape and too dang heavy to consider removing.  He replaced the ugly vanity with a pedestal sink, installed a new toilet, laid ceramic floor tiles, and most impressively of all, affixed over 1,200 subway tiles to the walls to replace the tin-tile wainscoting and create a tub/shower surround.

Here are before and after shots:

 

 

Quite a transformation, no?  When the bath renovation was finished, it was the most "done" room in the entire house and I was thrilled with it.  I was so excited that if I could have filled the tub with cushions and installed satellite television in there, I would have moved into the bathroom full time.  

Since we chose - some might say foolishly - white grout for both the floor and the wall tiles, we invested a little extra money and a LOT of extra pain-in-the-ass effort (on D's part anyway) for epoxy grout, which is supposed to resist staining.  One of the things I promised D, after all his hard work, is that I would keep the bathroom sparkling clean.  And I did... for a while.

Then life and my old bad habits got in the way and suddenly I found that I hadn't scrubbed the shower walls for a good couple of months and we were a getting pinkish scum build-up in there.  So I scrubbed, and scrubbed and scrubbed some more.  And while I could get the bathroom sparkling clean, the grout lines stubbornly hung on to their new pink hue.  Fecking epoxy grout - stain resistant, my ass.

I had seen an infomercial for the Sonic Scrubber and then noticed that they were sold at Bed, Bath & Beyond with the Dow Scrubbing Bubbles brand name added.  Perhaps this isn't the normal "as seen on TV" useless tat?  After checking out some good reviews on the interweb, I decided to try one out.

Combined with Soft Scrub with bleach, this thing works a treat.  No scrubbing or sweating, just slowly pass the spinning brush across the grout and presto, it's sparkling clean!  It's like a power toothbrush for tile - awesome!

And as a little follow up tip for anybody else that hates cleaning the shower as much as I do, I have only one thing to say: daily shower spray.  I never really believed in this stuff.  In fact, at nearly three dollars a bottle, which you can easily go through in a week or two, I considered it a bit of a waste.  But after diligently detailing my shower tiles with the Sonic Scrubber (which, while easy, was still time consuming) I decided to try it out - but found a recipe for a homemade version which is easy to mix up in a spray bottle and very inexpensive as well.

1/2 cup (4oz) Hydrogen Peroxide
1/2 cup (4oz) Rubbing Alcohol
2 tsp Jet Dry dishwasher rinse agent
A couple of drops of dish soap
4 cups (24oz) of water

I've been spraying this on my shower daily for about 2 months now.  The shower wall tiles still look sparkling clean and I haven't had to scrub them once. 

So there you are, friends.  If you've got a bunch of tile grout to clean, get thyself a Sonic Scrubber!

Note: I haven't been compensated for this review/recommendation in any way.  I just loved this thing so much I want to share it with the world.  Or at least the little troupe of you reading my blog.