Operation Kitchen Makeover Phase 2: New backsplash (Part 1)

Hi Everyone!

Man is this post a loooooooooong time coming.  Like seriously.  We’ve been at this whole kitchen makeover thing for just about a year now. Yikes!  Hey what can I say.  I’m a glutton for agony.  

Back in March of last year we began a revamp of our kitchen by painting the kitchen cabinets and converting some into an open shelving concept.  We also added new hardware, swapped out some standard shelving, and gave our walls a coat of rich navy paint. 

Then things came to screeching halt because we couldn’t decide on a back splash material for MONTHS!  In September we found it and are just getting around to actually installing it.  Don’t judge, people.  Don’t judge. 

On our most recent trip to Costco we noticed the tiles were on sale for just $19.97 a box. (they come 5sq ft/box). That’s under $4/sq ft! So like any rational DIYer I not so rationally scooped up the booty, clunked them into the shopping cart and made a B-line for check out line.  Best. impulse. buy. ever.

If you are part of my Instagram family, you’ve already seen sneak peek’s of the work we’ve done thus far.  Here’s the sorta kinda official “how we did it” post.  Now let me just put this disclaimer out in to the universe before we go any further. 

**The way we’ve tackled this installation is by no means the professional approach.  We followed the directions that came with our tiles and chose our application material based on those recommendations.  We also improvised on alot of how we actually went about installing the tiles.  There are a lot of really great tutorials online from really great sources on how to do this the legit way. This is merely the way we went about doing things here at AHFOC**
 
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, here’s what we started with.

First we removed the existing Corian slab and was left with this

After speaking with a colleague of mine who is a contractor I was told the wall is actually in good condition and we didn’t need to make any repairs.  He did suggest we prime over the wall first though so we did.  This is what we used

We didn’t use this for any one reason or another.  We just happened to already have it.  While the primer dried we gathered all our materials

The other (and most useful) tools we used that aren’t pictured here are a glass tile nipper and a utility knife. 

Helpful Hint #1-Now, if there’s one piece of advice I HIGHLY suggest it would be to plan your placement before you begin tiling.  It really is the difference between a good, clean, professional looking job and a possible disaster. 

After the primer dried we planned out our placement.  We began by finding the center behind the cook top.  That’s where we wanted our tiles to begin.  After that we mixed up our thin set (you’re looking for the consistency of peanut butter) and started applying our tiles.  Leaving a 1/8″ gap between the counter top and start of the wall, we started from the bottom of the wall at the counter top and worked our way up in small sections- only working at a pace of about 2 square feet of tile at a time. We use a 3/16′ V notch trowel to apply the mortar to the wall.  

-Helpful Hint #2 -You only want to work in as small areas at a time.  The mortar dries fairly quickly and you don’t want it to dry on you before you can get the tile up. 

Once we got on a roll the process went fairly quickly.  Since our tiles came on a mesh backing it was super easy to just cut away any tiles we needed to work around obstacles such as electrical boxes and the upper cabinets.  We only worked for a couple hours before calling it a night.  Here are some pics of our progress.

I’m really kinda head over heels for this tile, y’all!  Its such a perfect mix of Naomi and I.  Its part sleek and modern, part natural and textural, and a whole lotta sexy! Ok so sexy might be a stretch, but its the only word I can think of to describe it.

So that where we are my friends.  Coming up I’ll cover how we finished the job.  Can’t wait to share it.  So have you guys been working on anything lately?  Until next time….

XoXo-Shavonda

Posted By: Shavonda Gardner · In: interiors