Believe it or not, when i did my small powder room, the hardest part was picking the grout color. I ended up with darker shade and love the contrast between white carrara marble tiles.

When I see grout that is significantly darker than the tile it's between my brain just automatically calculates: dirty. It doesn't matter if the colors are fabulous together, it just never works for me.

When all these nifty new grout sealers and even grout with sealers in the mix which repel mildew I really don't see the need to go this dark route just for the purpose of masking dirt and grime.

I love the look of the dark grout. We did this with white subway tiles for our kitchen backsplash. It just looks more interesting and old-world.

We're just finishing up a bathroom now using dark (er) grout for the first time. I picked a color named platinum and it sets off the subway tiles nicely. In the past when I've used white grout the tiles looked like a solid panel.

Although I love the look of dark grout, I just couldn't handle it in my kitchen. The reason is this: I would need a very precise tile person who pays very close attention to spacing. The light grout covers up the irregularities in tile spacing while the dark only accentuates it.

@JESS13, same, but since moving into a rental with white tiles and white grout, I'm coming around to the idea of darker grout. The problem is that the grout is noticeably a little darker in high-traffic areas (in front of the sink and toilet). People say to just apply bleach to whiten it, but a contractor friend told me that since the bleach abrades the grout a bit, it actually makes it more porous and more likely to get dirty faster. Seems like a lose-lose.

I think maybe it would look best with a medium gray grout -- it would hide the normal wear but not be so dark that it looks like grime.

I just went on a home tour over the weekend and saw a bathroom with white tile and black grout. Unless you hire a serious professional to do the tile work it looks like a disaster. The dark grout really emphasizes a poorly-done tile job.

I went with white grout and regret it. I don't think I would go dark, but I think i would at least go with a light gray group.

I'm with Jose A - a light gray adds just a touch of contrast, without being an all-out whitefest. We have white subway tile in our kitchen, with a light grey grout. It's perfection in my book.

With white tiles a grayish grout with a blue undertone looks clean and bright while offering some of the disguise properties of dark grout. With any stone, you do best going with the darkest tone in the stone for the grout. It looks terrible when the grout is lighter. With mixed-color tiles (a mosaic range), work with the middle of the color range and the darker and lighter tiles will blend in.

I agree that a dark grout just looks dirty. I associate it with public bathrooms.

@jess13, bleach is the opposite pH to the calciferous component of grout, so it will etch. A pH neutral cleaner should be used on grout, not vinegar (which is so often recommended) or mildew-busting products like Tilex. If you use any of that, you need to reseal your grout.

You can safely bleach stained grout with hydrogen peroxide, but keep it away from your colored towels. It may bleach colored grout, but it will not etch.

I asked my contractor for light gray grout; he thought white would be better and asked me (while I was traveling) whether I wouldn't switch. To my regret, I agreed. The white grout/white tile looks pretty but shows every single mote of dust. So -- any options for changing grout color?

I work for an architecture firm that does many bathroom renovations - most of our projects are in commercial buddings (they get more use than the average home). When using white floor and wall tile, we usually use a darker grout for the floor since it gets more use/dirt and then use a lighter grout for any wall tile.

On the topic of grout, has anyone tried that "Grout Bully" thing advertised on TV lately? It supposedly dyes grout a different color. Perhaps AT could do a post on it.

I have white tiles and dark grout in my bathroom - I hate it!! And as a renter, there's not much I can do about it. To me, it just looks permanently dirty. I've also found that a regular bathroom cleaner will remove some of the colour, which then leaves a residue on the rest of the tub, so then I have to clean that off as well. I've noted the other comment about using a gentler cleaning product, so I'll have to look into that.

If ever I get to pick my own bathroom tiles in the future, I most certainly will not choose black grout with white tiles.

I don't care for the dark grouting

I don't like darker grout either. I can appreciate a slightly darker (like gray) grout on the floor, but dark grout with white tile looks dated and dirty to me. I've had white tile/white grout on counters and in showers in a few rentals, and it definitely cleans up better than most other surfaces I've dealt with.

After not being able to clean the previous owner's molded white grout I went with dark grey. I hate it too. There is no right answer.

If it were easy care, I'd say sure why not? But the fact that it requires extra thought so the color isn't impacted? Foggedaboutit!

I'm a fan of as little grout as possible.

Love it. Seems low maintenance which is awesome in my opinion. And the contrast between the dark grout and the lighter tiles is great.

Aaah. Bathroom tile and grout -- the bane of my existence. I'm with Terry. If anyone has a very good, long-lasting sealer, do share!

It would be great if AT would do some stories on grout cleaning and maintenance. Grout that is slightly darker than the tile is good, I don't like too much contrast, and agree that if the grout doesn't look 100% perfect, the whole job will look like crap.

One hotel I stayed in had white subway tile with pale turquoise grout - it looked like all white, only fresher and more beachy. You had to really pay attention to realize it was actually a pale blue. I thought that was a really smart idea, especially if you have a beach cottage style going on in your house.

I just moved into an apartment where the bathroom floor is white tiles with "white" grout. Well, used-to-be-white, now sort-of-gray-and-also-weirdly-orange grout. Any good options here? It's a small room, so I wouldn't mind a little DIY if it's the kind of thing you can do yourself without any real training. The rest of the room is apricot tile (what can you do) and white paint, so I'm leery about introducing any more colors.

@KMK355 - orange sounds like build up from hard water. Bleach will probably get rid of it.

When I gutted a bathroom five years ago, the contractor was weirdly insistent that I sign off on the grout color, picked from a rainbow of about 50 hues. I naively thought "White tile, white grout -- why is this an issue?" and the contractor nodded and said nothing, though he must have known. That grout showed traffic almost instantly, and trying to maintain a consistent color became the main chore in that room.

Now on a floor, I would always match the grout to the dirt, not to the tile. On a wall, the traffic won't be an issue, so do what you like (I'd love to see Parnassus' hotel with the white tile and turquoise grout).

I just remodeled a bathroom in my "new" 1954 house, and I have "dark" grout for the taupe floor tiles and field tiles. The accent stripe is copper-backed glass, and I was going to have to switch grouts anyway since I didn't want to use sanded grout on glass, so I matched the copper color. The bullnose trim is black, and I used darkest gray grout. Three colors of grout in one room might sound busy, but the reality is that I got what I wanted: You don't notice the grout!

I second the suggestion for AT to do an article on that infomercial grout pen -- it looks too good to be true.

I used a very dark grey grout on the floor of my art deco period bathroom with a field tile that was a basket weave that had black glossy tiles in the blank spaces of the weave, so my dark grey grout REALLY made the woven part pop, because the solid very-dark-grey border tiles also helped set it off. It was great. And seriously? I can't stand scrubbing light colored grout, so I REALLY love it. And so will my buyer. I will miss this apartment..

To me, dark grout is used "exactly" for the reason the person above who said he works in architectures uses it. To hide dirt. That is not what I want in a kitchen or a bathroom, the two most important areas of a home to maintain cleanliness. I also think it looks dirty and grimy even when it isn't. And as many said, the lines are too pronounced and show every imperfection. They also make a room look too busy.

Depending on whether the grout is one of those synthetic polymer grouts or a cement based one can impact the color. With the cement based grouts you have to mix with water, and sometimes you can get a bit of efflorescence or whitening that forms on the grout, which can impact the color.