While admiring the café shutters in my bathroom the other day, I realized they’re one of the best things about my newly built bathroom, which also reminded me of one of the worse things about the bathroom—my WHITE grout!
So, this month, I decided to share a couple pros and a con.
Let’s start with the good news. The window treatment, of course.
Café shutters only cover the lower half of the window. In my case, because of the way my house is positioned, covering the lower half of my window is all I need to ensure my neighbors can’t see into my bathroom.
The upper half of my windows can be naked (<gasp> you know I rarely recommend naked windows!) so that the light shines in and I have a great view of the sky and trees. The louvers are 3 ½ inches with invisible tilt, which means they don’t have a tilt bar.
Café shutters are great for ground floor windows because they provide privacy while letting plenty of light in, and they’re a wonderful option for tall windows. Another benefit is that café shutters integrate well with other window treatments—like drapes—which add color and warmth to the room, more privacy, or even complete darkness. With cafe shutters, you can also add an extra decorative element like a valance on the top portion of the window.
My next PRO is that when I was building, I got some great advice from the lighting professional: Put extra outlets in the bathroom … and also add one behind the toilet in case you ever need a bidet. That extra outlet behind the toilet also works great for plugging in a night light.
My bathroom CON falls into the category of … if I knew then what I know now!
White shower grout. What was I thinking?!!! My last shower had tan colored grout and I never had any problems. But, my new bathroom shower has three strikes against it: the grout is white, our house is on a well, and the grout wasn’t sealed. That lethal combination means that the grout is a nightmare to keep clean.
In hindsight, and after a lot of googling, I’ve discovered that epoxy grout was probably the way to go. Traditional grout, like mine, is made from a cement-based mix. Epoxy grout is made from epoxy resins combined with filler powder. It’s non-porous, which means it repels liquids that may stain it, or discolor it, like shampoo or soap, making it perfect for a bathroom. It doesn’t need a sealer because it hardens much quicker than cement grout, and it’s described as being even more durable than the tile. It comes in numerous shades, or can be dyed to match your tile.
In conclusion two pros cancel out one very annoying con. Excuse me while I google how to remove cement grout and replace it with epoxy. Oh, I bet there’s a great YouTube video for that!
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