Dye New Tile Grout to Match Old Grout

Learn how you can dye new tile grout to match old tile grout. Find out where to buy dye to color match grout from an earlier tiling job.

LESLIE: Donna in California needs some help with a remodeling project. What’s going on?

DONNA: Oh, we’re remodeling our kitchen and my husband would prefer if it we did not replace all the kitchen tile. He just wants to add on to the existing tile to extend the bar. So needless to say, we’re trying to find grout that matches some grout from quite a few years back.

TOM: It’s very difficult to get grout to match because even if you had the original bag of grout that you put in, obviously, with all the wear and the tear and the cleaning of the tile over the years, it does tend to discolor and if you put new grout in that new section, it would be dramatically different. Now the good news is give it a year or two; it’d probably end up being the same. But the other thing that you could do is if you did clean the old grout and then put the new stuff in, you could probably stain it using a concrete stain.

LESLIE: Well, yeah. Or it’s like a grout dye or a grout tint, they call it, and you can apply it right to existing dried grout and it totally paints it.

DONNA: Oh, well where would I find that kind of product?

LESLIE: You know, Donna, there’s actually a great online resource you should look at and it’s simply titled GroutDye.com. And when you snoop around the website, you’ll see there’s a color chart and I think they offer something like 17 or 20 colors; they’re custom mixed at the time of order so you know that everything is fresh and the colorant is going to be really adherent and stick to the grout. And it goes on with either a toothbrush or a special applicator bottle and it seems like it’s a really easy product to apply and it should give you the results you’re looking for.

TOM: Yeah, Donna. Just make sure you follow the manufacturer’s instructions on that because you want to make sure that that old grout is super clean before you put this on so you’ll get good and even adhesion and absorption from the old to the new and then it’s all going to match.

DONNA: Excellent, excellent. Thank you guys very much.

TOM: You’re welcome, Donna. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.