Errors - or - What Not To Do with Grout.

Error 417: Expectation Failed -

You see, two Saturday's ago at Shiloh I tried to grout a shower stall for the first time ever.  I thought I was doing great.  I got that grout between the tiles.  And I did it pretty fast too!  The problem was that I didn't realize how fast it dried.  Nobody told me that if I waited more than about 30 minutes I wouldn't be able to get the grout cleaned up.  You see, you are supposed to take a damp sponge and wipe the tiles down to clean up excess grout.  I expected to be able to grout the room, then wipe it down.  I was wrong.  You only have about 30 minutes before it has to be wiped down.

Error 449: Retry With -

I tried valiantly with the sponge to correct my first error.  But honestly I was mostly just tearing holes through the sponge because of the amount of pressure that I was adding.  I called my good friend Pete over to help me out (and God bless him he spent a few hours scrubbing with me).  We scrubbed the walls together. It still wasn't enough though. So I decided that we would retry with kitchen sink sponges (the yellow ones with the scratchy green side). It worked a little bit better. But the grout was hardening faster than we could scrub.

Error 462: Destination Unreachable -

This is really what it felt like. I had been scrubbing for hours and had to leave for my nieces first birthday party. I skipped lunch to try to get this done, but I still couldn't finish. I knew that it was over. By the time I could come back a few days later this would be as hard as it would get.

Error 405: Method Not Allowed - 

By this point my arms were kinda sore. The repetitive motion of scrubbing the tiles was pretty tedious. This is when I decided to work smarter - not harder.  I hopped in my car and went to the nearest hardware store where I picked up a brush that attaches to a drill. This was my ticket to the finish line!

All I can say is that it is a good thing I tested it out on an inconspicuous area because it really kinda messed up one of the tiles. The grout was gone, but so was the finish on part of the tile. I knew that this was not an acceptable solution

Error 424: Method Failure -

One of the guys I worked with suggested steel wool. Again though it was exhausting on the arms after two hours or so of hard scrubbing.I took some zip ties and attached the steel wool to the drill in an effort to once again alleviate my arms. It worked for quite a while, but after about 30 minutes it looked like a steel sheep had shed all over the floor. The steel wool just didn't hold up.

By this time our foreman at the gym had heard about my predicament and bought some heavy duty scouring pads. Of everything I have used, so far these work the best. I attached them to the drill and they took the grout off fast, with no negative side affects, but the pads just don't hold up.  Over the course of about 2 hours I went through the three industrial grade scouring pads that I had.

Error 406: Not Acceptable -

Later this week I still have to finish scrubbing this down (I have to find more of those scouring pads first). I know that leaving this long term is not acceptable.  However, I'm trying to clean up my mess. Hopefully I'm finished with this by the end of the week.  

I guess the points I'm driving at are:

1) When you mess something up, you should try to do something about it.

2) Fixing an error can take FAR longer than making one, and
3) Learn all you can about something new before you jump in head first.

Your turn:

When have you ever had to spend time cleaning up after a mess that you've made?  How much longer did it take than making the mess?  Tell us about it in the comments. Also, for those of you who have no idea what all these numbers mean, check out Wikipedia.