#the last photo is pencil discovering someone took a pic of her

[waytoobsessed]

Pov: Your my uncle

…

top ten pictures taken before disaster.

Number 10

[dreambook06]

Dream from: May 19, 2018

Very brief there is soo sooo much more to say about all this than what im about to say of course. here goes. it’s already fading as i begin.

some idek weird schoolworld idk! a scrapbook with colorful photos of the old school but it was like washington showing the old cafeteria (not real life) and food court and bathroom hand washing stations idk. mrs cowing was there idk she was like mom or idek we were like related like family? too vague but she was showing me (not really reality me t all or even a  physical being) pictures of her kids and in one i said ill try to find jackie (her daughter) and quickly pointed to a girl who looked like jackie and she said close but it was the girl to the left of her with a really orange tan.. eeetcccc.. so much holy craaappp so so much i cant even!!! nights and days of stuff.... some weird thing where i was trying to rescue animals through a cat door type thing i left open like a group of baby pandas wandered in then i opened another door in this tunnel thing leading up a staircase with this big room secret upsaairs thing where they lived until idk ?? we put the back in their natural enviromnent bc they were being poached or somethign what?? next door afar the whole time was mrs cowing in this weird train type really narrow trailer house wtff. it wasnt a neighborhood or anything kinda in the middle of nowhere field world wtf! there wre lambs, etc idk. and somewhere in the mix was karen alternate reality version she was like really naughty like promiscuous always with boys idk she was like sanding v oice messages to them like “come on bad boy” someting about bl****** it was weird idk what else happened with that. something with a bed then it cut away to a new segment of the dream... jumping around. i was trying to sneak on mrs cowing’s train for this one photo in her refrigerator? what? idek what it was  some old photo like from the 90s maybe of something or someone? idk!!! then there was this whole thing with me and nori and like a field trip or something in this old school place or train or plane kinda with bunkbeds and idek!! it was in the middle of nowhere what.  so i wanted a top bunk but this jellyfish thing wtf took my spot and nori was also on a top bunk and i was like thats so unfair i never get a top bunkbed and that jellyfish doesn’t even need a top bunk, it doesn’t even have a mind! so we moved the jellyfish and it was like 3 dead washed up jellyfish on the floor wtf…. next scene a school burning down on fire someone said “areas 1,2,3,7,8, are destroyed” or something like that. a whole thing involving that occurred…. like a pretty long / huge part of the dream but i forgot. more more omgg damnig!! i feel like I’m forgetting a huge huge segment… oh yeah the thing with the secret doors… well idont even but somehow it was then later like the incredibles family but mrs cowings family but also a made up family and they had to hide their kids which was kind of pilar,= & teagan, but NOT. they had to hide them in the upstairs dome hidden world i mentioned before with the pandas. for years. but they didn’t age. this part of the dream was huge i can’t even describe holy shyot!!  so so much. aunt becky was there like a maid for us and other people idk! taking care and stuff and the kids or whatever they were were being really loud like laughing and playing crazily one day or early on and a neighbor guy bc it was somewhat like an apartment got concerned and ventured up the stairs secret and i told aunt becky quickly and she had protocol like she’d pretend it was like a castle (that makes sense. totally.) but i left and later i came back and the guy was actually there bc he and becky had talked over a dating app and was there to meet . so then they were in love lmao…. so much more holy crap!!! dad was there something in this place with a huge circus ring thing idek like a competition like some game show with random people from the audience getting picked but it was insaaanee and our aunt stacy (but her name was willy or wilbur in the story) kept getting picked and winning so much money. later cut to a scene of her house alternate reality x 10000 with  weird rooms, puzzles, a garage thing where mom said she got rid of most o her bikes she used to have like 100 but then it was reduced to a toy box full wtf. i picked up my old light blue bike from 2012 ew and tried to ride it (irl we only have 4 bikes and i need a bike to go riding with the family) but when i tried to brake the handle break was broken so i couldn’t use that bike. mom said some bikes don’t have that? wtf. anyway so so much more i cannot even holy crapp!!!!!! so overwhelming. i missed a crapton but onto the “next” segment. some family reunion thing in this specific backyard wilderness forest woods setting that mustve been in an oooold dream or somehow fabricated based on fragments of childhood memories. like a family get together with lawn chairs, campfire, etc. logs lying around. while this was happening in my brain in the dream i was like so overcome bc i remembered this place from childhood. now that I’m awake i know i made that up. this wasn’t in rea life but it sure as heck felt like it!! so here we go. it was current day but it was weird everything felt like 2006-2009 idk! mason was younger, so were pilar and teagan. i took pilar’s pink ds because i had no cameraa w/ me and desperately wanted to photograph what i was seeing! but it took forever to take pictures it was so frustrating. like it kept lagging and stalling so it hooklike 30 seconds to take one picture & wanted to hurry because i felt like a time bomb was ticking and it all would vanish soon…. so we ventured along. i took pics of the pile of logs which was exactly how i “remembered it” from my real memories, the layout of the family sitting around in groups, the fields, the trees leading to the woods nearby.. when i was it. this specific stream arrangement to a secret secured place with a tree with a split kinda knot in it opened up like a pocket… we went closer , it was scary bc i didn’t want to drop the ds in the stream…. and i looked inside the wide knot of the tree and saw old messages, blue egg shells, white rocks. that we (my sisters, me and our cousins) left there last time we had gone there. i was so overcome with emotions like it was amazing like a lost part of my past (but this did not happen irl although it sure damn felt like it did!) the white rocks had our initials carved on it.  “T.H. 2010” was the main one i kept seeing. and there were crumpled up pieces of paper with messages that were kinda washed away (the inked/penciled words) . there was this asian type girl with us too but idk who she was. but she discovered more stuff but i was like slow down  i need to get pictures of this stuff first and preserve it!!!!! it was crazy i thought it was going to slip away  before my eyes and disappear, i was kinda panicking. she had found more secret stuff we left behind. teagan found a littlest pet shop benny thing with some initials written on its foot in the tree. the girl found a magazine of our dad posting in the front cover for some local gymnastics halloween party thing idk. then we went inside this secret passage near the secluded area (but we never ended up going in there. it was like a little mini pond that the stream led to , dark in the shade of trees with weeping willows and stuff— like the surskit area in poke park wii idk) — and it was kinda scary in the secret hole idk not really but it was  an old 2000s box t.v. playing dad’s tapes of gymnastics stuff and then stuffed with straw scarecrow type things sitting around it like a halloween props. they were in the pose of the picture on the cover, one of the dummies was supposed to resemble dad. there was a pumpkin on top of the tv. then it jumped around a bit idk  and my camera/ds died i guess. so i rwanted to run back home . to get a real camera. mason and pilar came with me and we had to run dow a super steep hill like the one in town by hermann… mason had his bike, i was running so fast my feet couldn’t stop and i reach out my right hand and grabbed a pole and swung around it as mason massed under my arm, ducking. it was funny, perfect timing. then this whole segment of the dream pretty much abruptly ended. and now we’re at the last segment. i pretty much forgot it at this point. something really weird and not as memorable so I’m not really complaining. but it is annoying to forget. some weird prank type thing where this girl and this weird guy who was serving food hit it off and got married instantly. it was weird idk it was supposed to be like a funny prank thing but too vague to remember now. ufgh.it was weird idk what else happened with that. something with a bed then it cut away to a new segment of the dream... jumping around.

^^^ This.

[statusreview]

Installing A Subway Tile Backsplash For $200

One regret Sherry and I have about our first house is not doing a tiled backsplash as part of our kitchen makeover. Best I can remember, we wanted an easily changeable “pop of color” in the form of good ol’ fashioned paint instead (and we spent a lot on that makeover, so it was a cost saving measure as well). If only we had known how cheap and easy a backsplash could be if you install it yourself! Now having several tiling projects under our belts – including the backsplashes in our current kitchen and our last kitchen – it feels like a no-brainer.

We even added a backsplash to our laundry room (here’s how, and here’s the full room reveal), which made a gigantic difference with just 13 tiles. So when my aunt asked if we’d help her by installing a subway tile backsplash in her kitchen, we were game. It took us just two half-days to complete, and rung in right at $200. See what I mean? No brainer.

My Aunt Liz (also known as Great Liz to our kids) moved to Richmond a few years ago, but didn’t have a backsplash put in when her new home was built. Luckily, she had chosen some nice black cabinets and a gray & back granite counter that was well suited for the addition of some classic white subway tile down the line, which she has always loved and pictured in there. These iPhone pictures aren’t doing the space much justice, but they give you a sense of where we started. And yes, when it comes to adding a backsplash, you can put it right over the drywall (even if it’s painted!) and use ready-mixed adhesive and grout to make it even easier. So let’s break down how we got it done.

Prep

Liz had already cleared off her counters when we arrived the first morning, so we jumped right into protecting everything using painter’s tape and red rosin-paper (this is a more waterproof version of your standard brown paper, both of which you can get at the home improvement store). We also removed all of the switch and outlet covers (and later, with the power off, we loosened any switches or outlets from their junction boxes). Note: if you have old tile to remove first, here’s how we’ve done that in the past. 

Since a kitchen backsplash isn’t a heavy-duty super-wet tile scenario (like a shower wall or bathroom floor) you really can apply the tile directly to your painted drywall without having to tear anything down and install cement board. All it takes is just roughing up your paint job with a high-grit sanding block or sandpaper (we used 80-grit).

Hat-related side note: in taking all of these photos, Sherry failed to notice that the back of my hat was TOTALLY JACKED UP the whole time. Who has TWO tags sticking out of their hat ever, let alone for an entire series of photos and a video?? I’d encourage you to avert your eyes, but you’d miss all the pertinent visuals in this post – so just avoid staring directly at the hat if you can help it. 

Once our sanding was done, we started planning the placement of our pattern. Rather than a standard 3 x 6″ subway tile, the three of us decided this smaller 2 x 4″ tile that came in a sheet was a better scale for the space (if you’re not near a Lowe’s, Wayfair’s got the same look for almost half the price). We also picked up some white bullnose tile for the ends that wouldn’t terminate into a wall. Laying everything out beforehand helped us ensure we weren’t leaving slivers on either end, and that the pattern would look centered on the wall. I’ll show you in a minute how this all turned out.

We had measured Liz’s backsplash area on a previous visit and then purchased enough square footage PLUS about 10-15% extra just in case. It’s always important to have that around to account for breakage, miscuts, and other hiccups.

Hanging The Tile

For the next parts of this process, we made a quick video so you can see the basic steps in action. But you can keep reading below if you’re not in a place where you can watch it at the moment (or if you really hate jamming out to dope beats. Yup, I said it). Note: If you’re viewing this post from a feed reader, you may have to click through to the post to see the video. 

To hang the tile, we used a premixed mastic to adhere it to the wall. I used a small trowel to apply it to the wall in small sections at a time (I found the small trowel easier to maneuver in the tight space under the cabinets). Here are some screen grabs from the video. Again, try not to only stare at my hat issues.

Once we had a thin layer of mastic applied, we used a V-notched trowel to scrape off the excess – holding the trowel at a 45-degree angle the whole time. This not only removes extra mastic, but also creates grooves that will help the tile adhere to the wall better. Sherry and I are highly competitive about who makes the best grooves.

Once you get your groove on (ha!) you can apply your tile. The area shown here was large enough for full sheets, and as you saw in the video, we used some 1/8″ tile spacers to help keep the lines of the pattern straight and even. You’ll have several minutes of literal wiggle room before the mastic sets, but we never try to work too far in advance without taking a step back to see if anything has slipped or isn’t straight.

Cutting The Tile

Laying the tile is super easy. The only place it gets slightly complicated is when cutting is involved, so I’ll give you a few examples of the tools and tricks you might need to have up your sleeve. For instance, when a partial sheet was needed –  like when these walls called for an extra row on top of each sheet – Sherry discovered that some pruning sheers worked great for snipping the glue dots that held our sheets together (the same would work on mesh tile sheets – as would a normal kitchen scissors). We just cut a few full sheets into rows so we had them at the ready.

When a partial tile is in order (like when you bump into a light switch, outlet, or the end of the wall) we relied on a wet saw. For simple tiles like subway you can also use a ceramic tile cutter, but it will only cut along one line – so it wouldn’t work in cases like the one shown below, where I had to make that puppy look like Oklahoma. I used a pencil to mark the notch I’d need to cut out, and then took it outside to my wet saw to trim. For any first timers, a wet saw is faaar less scary than it looks. It’s actually one of my favorite saws to use because you can cut very slowly and be pretty precise.

Don’t worry about making it crazy perfect around an outlet because the outlet cover will hide a lot. In fact, if you scroll back to the top pic in this post you’ll see that the outlet cover goes all the way to the grout crack, so all of that special cutting is hidden under it anyway.

The wet saw was also helpful for cutting full sheets faster, like when we got to the end of a wall. And unlike some experiences I’ve had with cutting tile sheets on a wet saw, these were super fast and easy to do.

My saw came with an adjustable guide that also made cutting angles really easy. This would be super important if you were installing subway in a herringbone pattern, for example, and needed to cut the edge pieces (believe me, we’ve done it without one!). But in this case, we just needed it for the bullnose border pieces that we used whenever the tile didn’t terminate into a wall corner.

Ends & Borders

Speaking of those bullnose pieces, you do have to think about where and how your backsplash is going to end. If you’re lucky, it will just run right into a corner like Liz’s did on the stove side of her kitchen, in which case there’s no border necessary (since the unfinished sides of the tile aren’t visible thanks to them butting up against the side wall).

Speaking of that side wall, we could’ve opted to turn the tile and continue it along the side wall but there wasn’t a natural stopping point (the counters stick out much further than the upper cabinets, so it could look awkward to stop at one but not the other). Just going wall-to-wall along the back always makes for a nice clean look.

On the opposite wall, however, we didn’t have any walls to terminate into – which is where that bullnose edge detail came into play. You can see how we used a 45-degree angled cut at the top corners to make sure each exposed edge had a finished bullnose (as opposed to seeing the unfinished side of a regular tile).

Along this stretch of wall, we chose to install the tile wherever the existing granite backsplash ran, which seemed to look the most intentional (like they had always been there, installed together at the same time). In the past we have removed that short piece of granite so the tile can go right to the counter, but in this case they worked so well together that it felt better to leave it there – especially since it wasn’t worth the risk of damaging someone else’s granite counters in an attempt to get it off.

Grouting & Caulking

We finished all of the tile cutting and installing in about 5 hours (it was mostly all of the outlets and switches on that one wall that ate up a lot of our time). We let the mastic set overnight and came back the next morning to remove our spacers, lay down fresh paper, and begin grouting. We used premixed grout (for the first time!) in a light gray for the slightest bit of contrast… and I’m undecided on it. Maybe I’ve just been mixing my grout too watery all of these years, but I found this to be a little on the dry side, which made it harder to spread quickly and without it crumbling off the wall and falling onto the counter. But it certainly was nice to skip the mixing step, so I’d happily give it another try to get more practice.

You can see grouting in action in the video, but it basically involves using the float to smoosh it (technical term, I promise) into all of the gaps between tiles. It takes a bit of pressure and some back-and-forth, up-and-down motions to make sure it catches in every seam – but it’s a relatively easy, albeit tedious process. Once you’ve got it in every seam, drag your float over the tile at a sharp angle to wipe off excess from the tile surfaces.

After you’ve let your grout set for around ten minutes or so, use a barely damp sponge to wipe along the surface of the tile. This will help remove any leftover grout on the tiles and also smooth the grout within the seams. It doesn’t take much pressure or water at all. You may find you want to go back for a second pass a little while later, once it’s set even more within the seams (this helps to take the haze off the tile itself).

You’ll also want to caulk the edges where the tile meets your counter, your cabinets, and/or the walls. We bought a caulk that’s color-matched to the light gray grout we used (both were “Silverado”), so it wouldn’t stick out like a big white border. We like to tape off the areas that are about to be caulked, leaving just a thin gap for where the caulk will go. Then just squeeze a small line of caulk along the seam, and use a wet finger (dipped in a cup of warm water) to smooth it. Be sure to pull your tape off as soon as you’ve got it smoothed to your liking. Do NOT wait for the caulk to fully dry before removing your tape. Note: this caulk went on lighter than the grout and scared us for a second, but it darkened to be a perfect match when it dried. 

Finishing

Often the finishing touches are buffing and sealing. You may find a grout haze appearing on your tile over the next 24 hours. Once the grout has had a full day or so to set, use a non-shedding cloth (like microfiber or cheesecloth) to buff the surface of the tile. It may take some elbow grease in certain places, just be carefull not to press into any grout lines – especially if they show any signs of not being fully cured. Some tiles or grouts may require sealing also, but neither of ours did in this case. You can read more about that in this post if yours do.

After that – you’re ready to enjoy your new backsplash! Which, without tooting our own horns too much, Liz was very excited to do. She’s been in this house for about three years and has always known the kitchen needed something like this. So it was fun to be able to help her make it happen… and for just $200! Note: we did three walls of Liz’s kitchen, so for anyone who might just need one or two areas of tile, it should be even cheaper – especially if you order the Wayfair tile we later found, which is almost half the price. 

The only downside to this project is that we may have opened up a can of worms for Liz (we all agreed that extending the Revere Pewter wall color from her nearby living room would look awesome in here). But that’s a project for another day! And maybe another nephew? Just kidding. Well, maybe not. Love you, Liz!

And if this is just the nudge you needed to do what we should’ve done in our first kitchen (#backsplashregrets), here are some tile options we hunted down that would work really well for a backsplash update:

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10

If you guys want more info, tutorials, and photos of other tile projects in our house – here are some other installs we’ve documented:

Installing A Small-Scale Herringbone In Our Laundry Room

Installing Marble Herringbone Around A Fireplace

Installing Porcelain Floor Tile In Our Laundry Room

Installing Large Stone Tile In An Outdoor Area

Installing A Penny Tile Backsplash In Our Last Kitchen (Getting Started, Cutting Tiles, Grouting, Removing Haze)

Removing An Old Shower Tile Border and Installing A New One

Installing A Subway Shower Surround & Marble Floor (And Grouting It)

Speaking of installing tile, we’re bound to have a lot more of it coming up in our beach house soon. I can’t tell if I’m excited or intimidated. Three showers, three bathroom floors, a backsplash… *gulp*

Psst- We’ve heard from a bunch of people that Facebook and Instagram algorithms aren’t showing as many of our posts as they used to, so people are missing when we say “there’s a new blog post about ___” and later they see something that has changed in our house and ask “wait, when did you do that?!” So it seems that the best way to stay on top of posts is just to swing by our blog, where we typically post once or twice a week. Maybe just dropping by on Mon and Thurs is a good way to keep from missing new things? You can always go right to http://ift.tt/1Or03h8 to see the latest thing at the top of the page. Wish IG and FB were less maniacal in their ever-changing algorithms! 

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Installing A Subway Tile Backsplash For $200 appeared first on Young House Love.

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Installing A Subway Tile Backsplash For $200 http://ift.tt/2rRqBSb

One regret Sherry and I have about our first house is not doing a tiled backsplash as part of our kitchen makeover. Best I can remember, we wanted an easily changeable “pop of color” in the form of good ol’ fashioned paint instead (and we spent a lot on that makeover, so it was a cost saving measure as well). If only we had known how cheap and easy a backsplash could be if you install it yourself! Now having several tiling projects under our belts – including the backsplashes in our current kitchen and our last kitchen – it feels like a no-brainer.

We even added a backsplash to our laundry room (here’s how, and here’s the full room reveal), which made a gigantic difference with just 13 tiles. So when my aunt asked if we’d help her by installing a subway tile backsplash in her kitchen, we were game. It took us just two mornings to complete, and rung in right at $200. See what I mean? No brainer.

My Aunt Liz (also known as Great Liz to our kids) moved to Richmond a few years ago, but didn’t have a backsplash put in when her new home was built. Luckily, she had chosen some nice black cabinets and a gray & back granite counter that was well suited for the addition of some classic white subway tile down the line, which she has always loved and pictured in there. These iPhone pictures aren’t doing the space much justice, but they give you a sense of where we started. And yes, when it comes to adding a backsplash, you can put it right over the drywall (even if it’s painted!) and use ready-mixed adhesive and grout to make it even easier. So let’s break down how we got it done.

Prep

Liz had already cleared off her counters when we arrived the first morning, so we jumped right into protecting everything using painter’s tape and red rosin-paper (this is a more waterproof version of your standard brown paper, both of which you can get at the home improvement store). We also removed all of the switch and outlet covers (and later, with the power off, we loosened any switches or outlets from their junction boxes).

Since a kitchen backsplash isn’t a heavy-duty super-wet tile scenario (like a shower wall or bathroom floor) you really can apply the tile directly to your painted drywall without having to tear anything down and install cement board. All it takes is just roughing up your paint job with a high-grit sanding block or sandpaper (we used 80-grit).

Hat-related side note: in taking all of these photos, Sherry failed to notice that the back of my hat was TOTALLY JACKED UP the whole time. Who has TWO tags sticking out of their hat ever, let alone for an entire series of photos and a video?? I’d encourage you to avert your eyes, but you’d miss all the pertinent visuals in this post – so just avoid staring directly at the hat if you can help it. 

Once our sanding was done, we started planning the placement of our pattern. Rather than a standard 3 x 6″ subway tile, the three of us decided this smaller 2 x 4″ tile that came in a sheet was a better scale for the space (if you’re not near a Lowe’s, Wayfair’s got the same look for almost half the price). We also picked up some white bullnose tile for the ends that wouldn’t terminate into a wall. Laying everything out beforehand helped us ensure we weren’t leaving slivers on either end, and that the pattern would look centered on the wall. I’ll show you in a minute how this all turned out.

We had measured Liz’s backsplash area on a previous visit and then purchased enough square footage PLUS about 10-15% extra just in case. It’s always important to have that around to account for breakage, miscuts, and other hiccups (plus you want to keep some extra tile afterwards, just in case you ever have to replace a tile that cracks or something down the line).

Hanging The Tile

For the next parts of this process, we made a quick video so you can see the basic steps in action. But you can keep reading below if you’re not in a place where you can watch it at the moment (or if you really hate jamming out to dope beats. Yup, I said it). Note: If you’re viewing this post from a feed reader, you may have to click through to the post to see the video. 

To hang the tile, we used a premixed mastic to adhere it to the wall. I used a small trowel to apply it to the wall in small sections at a time (I found the small trowel easier to maneuver in the tight space under the cabinets). Here are some screen grabs from the video. Again, try not to only stare at my hat issues.

Once we had a thin layer of mastic applied, we used a V-notched trowel to scrape off the excess – holding the trowel at a 45-degree angle the whole time. This not only removes extra mastic, but also creates grooves that will help the tile adhere to the wall better. Sherry and I are highly competitive about who makes the best grooves.

Once you get your groove on (ha!) you can apply your tile. The area shown here was large enough for full sheets, and as you saw in the video, we used some 1/8″ tile spacers to help keep the lines of the pattern straight and even. You’ll have several minutes of literal wiggle room before the mastic sets, but we never try to work too far in advance without taking a step back to see if anything has slipped or isn’t straight.

Cutting The Tile

Laying the tile is super easy. The only place it gets slightly complicated is when cutting is involved, so I’ll give you a few examples of the tools and tricks you might need to have up your sleeve. For instance, when a partial sheet was needed –  like in our case we needed one extra row on top of each sheet – Sherry discovered that some pruning sheers worked great for snipping the glue dots that held our sheets together (the same would work on mesh tile sheets – as would a normal kitchen scissors). We just cut a few full sheets into rows so we had them at the ready.

When a partial tile is in order (like when you bump into a light switch, outlet, or the end of the wall) we relied on a wet saw. For simple tiles like subway you can also use a ceramic tile cutter, but it will only cut along one line – so it wouldn’t work in cases like the one shown below, where I had to make that puppy look like Oklahoma. I used a pencil to mark the notch I’d need to cut out, and then took it outside to my wet saw to trim. For any first timers, a wet saw is faaar less scary than it looks. It’s actually one of my favorite saws to use because you can cut very slowly and be pretty precise.

Don’t worry about making it crazy perfect around an outlet because the outlet cover will hide a lot. In fact, if you scroll back to the top pic in this post you’ll see that the outlet cover goes all the way to the grout crack, so all of that special cutting is hidden under it anyway.

The wet saw was also helpful for cutting full sheets faster, like when we got to the end of a wall. And unlike some experiences I’ve had with cutting tile sheets on a wet saw, these were super fast and easy to do.

My saw came with an adjustable guide that also made cutting angles really easy. This would be super important if you were installing subway in a herringbone pattern for example (believe me, we’ve done it without one!). But in this case, we just needed it for the bullnose border pieces for where the tile didn’t terminate into a wall corner.

Ends & Borders

Speaking of those bullnose pieces, you do have to think about where and how your backsplash is going to end. If you’re lucky, it will just run right into a corner like Liz’s did on the stove side of her kitchen, in which case there’s no border necessary (since the raw cut sides of the tile aren’t visible thanks to them butting up against the side wall).

Speaking of that side wall, we could’ve opted to turn the tile and continue it along the side wall but there wasn’t a natural stopping point (the counters stick out much further than the upper cabinets, so it could look awkward to stop at one but not the other). Just going wall-to-wall along the back always makes for a nice clean look.

On the opposite wall, however, we didn’t have any walls to terminate into – which is where that bullnose edge detail came into play. You can see how we used a 45-degree angled cut at the top corners to make sure each exposed edge had a finished bullnose, not the unfinished side of a regular tile.

Along this stretch of wall, we chose to install the tile wherever the existing granite backsplash ran, which seemed to look the most intentional (like they had always been there, installed together at the same time). In the past we have removed that short piece of granite so the tile can go right to the counter, but in this case they worked so well together it felt better to leave it there – especially since it wasn’t worth damaging someone else’s granite counters in an attempt to get it off.

Grouting & Caulking

We finished all of the tile cutting and installing in about 5 hours (it was mostly all of the outlets and switches on that one wall that ate up a lot of our time). We let the mastic set overnight and came back the next morning to remove our spacers, lay down fresh paper, and begin grouting. We used premixed grout (for the first time!) in a light gray for the slightest bit of contrast… and I’m undecided on it. Maybe I’ve just been mixing my grout too watery all of these years, but I found this to be a little on the dry side, which made it harder to spread quickly and without it crumbling off the wall and falling onto the counter. But it certainly was nice to skip the mixing step, so I’d happily give it another try to get more practice.

You can see grouting in action in the video, but it basically involves using the float to smoosh it (technical term, I promise) into all of the gaps between tiles. It takes a bit of pressure and some back-and-forth, up-and-down motion to make sure it catches in every seam – but it’s a relatively easy, albeit tedious process. Once you’ve got it in every seam, drag your float over the tile at a sharp angle to wipe off excess from the tile surfaces.

Once you’ve let your grout set for a few minutes, use a barely damp sponge to wipe along the surface of the tile. This will help remove any leftover grout on the tiles and also smooth the grout within the seams. It doesn’t take much pressure or water at all. You may find you want to go back for a second pass a little while later, once it’s set even more within the seams (this helps to take the haze off the tile itself).

You’ll also want to caulk the edges where the tile meets your counter, your cabinets, and/or the walls. We bought a caulk that’s color-matched to the light gray grout we used (both were “Silverado”), so it wouldn’t stick out like a big white border. We like to tape off the areas that are about to be caulked, leaving just a thin gap for where the caulk will go. Then just squeeze a small line of caulk along the seam, and use a wet finger (dipped in a cup of warm water) to smooth it. Be sure to pull your tape off as soon as you’ve got it smoothed to your liking. Do NOT wait for the caulk to fully dry before removing your tape. Note: this caulk went on lighter than the grout and scared us for a second, but it darkened to be a perfect match when it dried. 

Finishing

Often the finishing touches are buffing and sealing. You may find a grout haze appearing on your tile over the next 24 hours. Once the grout has had a full day or so to set, use a non-shedding cloth (like microfiber or cheesecloth) to buff the surface of the tile. It may take some elbow grease in certain places, just be carefull not to press into any grout lines – especially if they show any signs of not being fully cured. Some tiles or grouts may require sealing also, but neither of ours did in this case. You can read more about that in this post if yours do.

After that – you’re ready to enjoy your new backsplash! Which, without tooting our own horns too much, Liz was very excited to do. She’s been in this house for about three years and has always known the kitchen needed something like this. So it was fun to be able to help her make it happen… and for just $200! Note: we did three walls of Liz’s kitchen, so for anyone who might just need one or two areas of tile, it should be even cheaper – especially if you order the Wayfair tile we later found, which is almost half the price. 

The only downside to this project is that we may have opened up a can of worms for Liz (we all agreed she should extend the Revere Pewter wall color from her nearby living room into here). But that’s a project for another day! And maybe another nephew? Just kidding. Well, maybe not. Love you, Liz!

And if this is just the nudge you needed to do what we should’ve done in our first kitchen (#backsplashregrets), here are some tile options we hunted down that would work really well for a backsplash update:

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10

If you guys want more info, tutorials, and photos of other tile projects in our house – here are some other installs we’ve documented:

Installing A Small-Scale Herringbone In Our Laundry Room

Installing Marble Herringbone Around A Fireplace

Installing Porcelain Floor Tile In Our Laundry Room

Installing Large Stone Tile In An Outdoor Area

Installing A Penny Tile Backsplash In Our Last Kitchen (Getting Started, Cutting Tiles, Grouting, Removing Haze)

Removing An Old Shower Tile Border and Installing A New One

Installing A Subway Shower Surround & Marble Floor (And Grouting It)

Speaking of installing tile, we’re bound to have a lot more of it coming up in our beach house soon. I can’t tell if I’m excited or intimidated. Three showers, three bathroom floors, a backsplash… *gulp*

Psst- We’ve heard from a bunch of people that Facebook and Instagram algorithms aren’t showing as many of our posts as they used to, so people are missing when we say “there’s a new blog post about ___” and later they see something that has changed in our house and ask “wait, when did you do that?!” So it seems that the best way to stay on top of posts is just to swing by our blog, where we typically post once or twice a week. Maybe just dropping by on Mon and Thurs is a good way to keep from missing new things? You can always go right to http://ift.tt/1Or03h8 to see the latest thing at the top of the page. Wish IG and FB were less maniacal in their ever-changing algorithms! 

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Installing A Subway Tile Backsplash For $200 appeared first on Young House Love.

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Installing A Subway Tile Backsplash For $200

One regret Sherry and I have about our first house is not doing a tiled backsplash as part of our kitchen makeover. Best I can remember, we wanted an easily changeable “pop of color” in the form of good ol’ fashioned paint instead (and we spent a lot on that makeover, so it was a cost saving measure as well). If only we had known how cheap and easy a backsplash could be if you install it yourself! Now having several tiling projects under our belts – including the backsplashes in our current kitchen and our last kitchen – it feels like a no-brainer.

We even added a backsplash to our laundry room (here’s how, and here’s the full room reveal), which made a gigantic difference with just 13 tiles. So when my aunt asked if we’d help her by installing a subway tile backsplash in her kitchen, we were game. It took us just two mornings to complete, and rung in right at $200. See what I mean? No brainer.

My Aunt Liz (also known as Great Liz to our kids) moved to Richmond a few years ago, but didn’t have a backsplash put in when her new home was built. Luckily, she had chosen some nice black cabinets and a gray & back granite counter that was well suited for the addition of some classic white subway tile down the line, which she has always loved and pictured in there. These iPhone pictures aren’t doing the space much justice, but they give you a sense of where we started. And yes, when it comes to adding a backsplash, you can put it right over the drywall (even if it’s painted!) and use ready-mixed adhesive and grout to make it even easier. So let’s break down how we got it done.

Prep

Liz had already cleared off her counters when we arrived the first morning, so we jumped right into protecting everything using painter’s tape and red rosin-paper (this is a more waterproof version of your standard brown paper, both of which you can get at the home improvement store). We also removed all of the switch and outlet covers (and later, with the power off, we loosened any switches or outlets from their junction boxes).

Since a kitchen backsplash isn’t a heavy-duty super-wet tile scenario (like a shower wall or bathroom floor) you really can apply the tile directly to your painted drywall without having to tear anything down and install cement board. All it takes is just roughing up your paint job with a high-grit sanding block or sandpaper (we used 80-grit).

Hat-related side note: in taking all of these photos, Sherry failed to notice that the back of my hat was TOTALLY JACKED UP the whole time. Who has TWO tags sticking out of their hat ever, let alone for an entire series of photos and a video?? I’d encourage you to avert your eyes, but you’d miss all the pertinent visuals in this post – so just avoid staring directly at the hat if you can help it. 

Once our sanding was done, we started planning the placement of our pattern. Rather than a standard 3 x 6″ subway tile, the three of us decided this smaller 2 x 4″ tile that came in a sheet was a better scale for the space (if you’re not near a Lowe’s, Wayfair’s got the same look for almost half the price). We also picked up some white bullnose tile for the ends that wouldn’t terminate into a wall. Laying everything out beforehand helped us ensure we weren’t leaving slivers on either end, and that the pattern would look centered on the wall. I’ll show you in a minute how this all turned out.

We had measured Liz’s backsplash area on a previous visit and then purchased enough square footage PLUS about 10-15% extra just in case. It’s always important to have that around to account for breakage, miscuts, and other hiccups.

Hanging The Tile

For the next parts of this process, we made a quick video so you can see the basic steps in action. But you can keep reading below if you’re not in a place where you can watch it at the moment (or if you really hate jamming out to dope beats. Yup, I said it). Note: If you’re viewing this post from a feed reader, you may have to click through to the post to see the video. 

To hang the tile, we used a premixed mastic to adhere it to the wall. I used a small trowel to apply it to the wall in small sections at a time (I found the small trowel easier to maneuver in the tight space under the cabinets). Here are some screen grabs from the video. Again, try not to only stare at my hat issues.

Once we had a thin layer of mastic applied, we used a V-notched trowel to scrape off the excess – holding the trowel at a 45-degree angle the whole time. This not only removes extra mastic, but also creates grooves that will help the tile adhere to the wall better. Sherry and I are highly competitive about who makes the best grooves.

Once you get your groove on (ha!) you can apply your tile. The area shown here was large enough for full sheets, and as you saw in the video, we used some 1/8″ tile spacers to help keep the lines of the pattern straight and even. You’ll have several minutes of literal wiggle room before the mastic sets, but we never try to work too far in advance without taking a step back to see if anything has slipped or isn’t straight.

Cutting The Tile

Laying the tile is super easy. The only place it gets slightly complicated is when cutting is involved, so I’ll give you a few examples of the tools and tricks you might need to have up your sleeve. For instance, when a partial sheet was needed –  like when these walls called for an extra row on top of each sheet – Sherry discovered that some pruning sheers worked great for snipping the glue dots that held our sheets together (the same would work on mesh tile sheets – as would a normal kitchen scissors). We just cut a few full sheets into rows so we had them at the ready.

When a partial tile is in order (like when you bump into a light switch, outlet, or the end of the wall) we relied on a wet saw. For simple tiles like subway you can also use a ceramic tile cutter, but it will only cut along one line – so it wouldn’t work in cases like the one shown below, where I had to make that puppy look like Oklahoma. I used a pencil to mark the notch I’d need to cut out, and then took it outside to my wet saw to trim. For any first timers, a wet saw is faaar less scary than it looks. It’s actually one of my favorite saws to use because you can cut very slowly and be pretty precise.

Don’t worry about making it crazy perfect around an outlet because the outlet cover will hide a lot. In fact, if you scroll back to the top pic in this post you’ll see that the outlet cover goes all the way to the grout crack, so all of that special cutting is hidden under it anyway.

The wet saw was also helpful for cutting full sheets faster, like when we got to the end of a wall. And unlike some experiences I’ve had with cutting tile sheets on a wet saw, these were super fast and easy to do.

My saw came with an adjustable guide that also made cutting angles really easy. This would be super important if you were installing subway in a herringbone pattern, for example, and needed to cut the edge pieces (believe me, we’ve done it without one!). But in this case, we just needed it for the bullnose border pieces that we used whenever the tile didn’t terminate into a wall corner.

Ends & Borders

Speaking of those bullnose pieces, you do have to think about where and how your backsplash is going to end. If you’re lucky, it will just run right into a corner like Liz’s did on the stove side of her kitchen, in which case there’s no border necessary (since the raw cut sides of the tile aren’t visible thanks to them butting up against the side wall).

Speaking of that side wall, we could’ve opted to turn the tile and continue it along the side wall but there wasn’t a natural stopping point (the counters stick out much further than the upper cabinets, so it could look awkward to stop at one but not the other). Just going wall-to-wall along the back always makes for a nice clean look.

On the opposite wall, however, we didn’t have any walls to terminate into – which is where that bullnose edge detail came into play. You can see how we used a 45-degree angled cut at the top corners to make sure each exposed edge had a finished bullnose, not the unfinished side of a regular tile.

Along this stretch of wall, we chose to install the tile wherever the existing granite backsplash ran, which seemed to look the most intentional (like they had always been there, installed together at the same time). In the past we have removed that short piece of granite so the tile can go right to the counter, but in this case they worked so well together it felt better to leave it there – especially since it wasn’t worth damaging someone else’s granite counters in an attempt to get it off.

Grouting & Caulking

We finished all of the tile cutting and installing in about 5 hours (it was mostly all of the outlets and switches on that one wall that ate up a lot of our time). We let the mastic set overnight and came back the next morning to remove our spacers, lay down fresh paper, and begin grouting. We used premixed grout (for the first time!) in a light gray for the slightest bit of contrast… and I’m undecided on it. Maybe I’ve just been mixing my grout too watery all of these years, but I found this to be a little on the dry side, which made it harder to spread quickly and without it crumbling off the wall and falling onto the counter. But it certainly was nice to skip the mixing step, so I’d happily give it another try to get more practice.

You can see grouting in action in the video, but it basically involves using the float to smoosh it (technical term, I promise) into all of the gaps between tiles. It takes a bit of pressure and some back-and-forth, up-and-down motion to make sure it catches in every seam – but it’s a relatively easy, albeit tedious process. Once you’ve got it in every seam, drag your float over the tile at a sharp angle to wipe off excess from the tile surfaces.

Once you’ve let your grout set for a few minutes, use a barely damp sponge to wipe along the surface of the tile. This will help remove any leftover grout on the tiles and also smooth the grout within the seams. It doesn’t take much pressure or water at all. You may find you want to go back for a second pass a little while later, once it’s set even more within the seams (this helps to take the haze off the tile itself).

You’ll also want to caulk the edges where the tile meets your counter, your cabinets, and/or the walls. We bought a caulk that’s color-matched to the light gray grout we used (both were “Silverado”), so it wouldn’t stick out like a big white border. We like to tape off the areas that are about to be caulked, leaving just a thin gap for where the caulk will go. Then just squeeze a small line of caulk along the seam, and use a wet finger (dipped in a cup of warm water) to smooth it. Be sure to pull your tape off as soon as you’ve got it smoothed to your liking. Do NOT wait for the caulk to fully dry before removing your tape. Note: this caulk went on lighter than the grout and scared us for a second, but it darkened to be a perfect match when it dried. 

Finishing

Often the finishing touches are buffing and sealing. You may find a grout haze appearing on your tile over the next 24 hours. Once the grout has had a full day or so to set, use a non-shedding cloth (like microfiber or cheesecloth) to buff the surface of the tile. It may take some elbow grease in certain places, just be carefull not to press into any grout lines – especially if they show any signs of not being fully cured. Some tiles or grouts may require sealing also, but neither of ours did in this case. You can read more about that in this post if yours do.

After that – you’re ready to enjoy your new backsplash! Which, without tooting our own horns too much, Liz was very excited to do. She’s been in this house for about three years and has always known the kitchen needed something like this. So it was fun to be able to help her make it happen… and for just $200! Note: we did three walls of Liz’s kitchen, so for anyone who might just need one or two areas of tile, it should be even cheaper – especially if you order the Wayfair tile we later found, which is almost half the price. 

The only downside to this project is that we may have opened up a can of worms for Liz (we all agreed she should extend the Revere Pewter wall color from her nearby living room into here). But that’s a project for another day! And maybe another nephew? Just kidding. Well, maybe not. Love you, Liz!

And if this is just the nudge you needed to do what we should’ve done in our first kitchen (#backsplashregrets), here are some tile options we hunted down that would work really well for a backsplash update:

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10

If you guys want more info, tutorials, and photos of other tile projects in our house – here are some other installs we’ve documented:

Installing A Small-Scale Herringbone In Our Laundry Room

Installing Marble Herringbone Around A Fireplace

Installing Porcelain Floor Tile In Our Laundry Room

Installing Large Stone Tile In An Outdoor Area

Installing A Penny Tile Backsplash In Our Last Kitchen (Getting Started, Cutting Tiles, Grouting, Removing Haze)

Removing An Old Shower Tile Border and Installing A New One

Installing A Subway Shower Surround & Marble Floor (And Grouting It)

Speaking of installing tile, we’re bound to have a lot more of it coming up in our beach house soon. I can’t tell if I’m excited or intimidated. Three showers, three bathroom floors, a backsplash… *gulp*

Psst- We’ve heard from a bunch of people that Facebook and Instagram algorithms aren’t showing as many of our posts as they used to, so people are missing when we say “there’s a new blog post about ___” and later they see something that has changed in our house and ask “wait, when did you do that?!” So it seems that the best way to stay on top of posts is just to swing by our blog, where we typically post once or twice a week. Maybe just dropping by on Mon and Thurs is a good way to keep from missing new things? You can always go right to http://ift.tt/1Or03h8 to see the latest thing at the top of the page. Wish IG and FB were less maniacal in their ever-changing algorithms! 

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Installing A Subway Tile Backsplash For $200 appeared first on Young House Love.

Installing A Subway Tile Backsplash For $200 published first on http://ift.tt/2qxZz2j

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Installing A Subway Tile Backsplash For $200

One regret Sherry and I have about our first house is not doing a tiled backsplash as part of our kitchen makeover. Best I can remember, we wanted an easily changeable “pop of color” in the form of good ol’ fashioned paint instead (and we spent a lot on that makeover, so it was a cost saving measure as well). If only we had known how cheap and easy a backsplash could be if you install it yourself! Now having several tiling projects under our belts – including the backsplashes in our current kitchen and our last kitchen – it feels like a no-brainer.

We even added a backsplash to our laundry room (here’s how, and here’s the full room reveal), which made a gigantic difference with just 13 tiles. So when my aunt asked if we’d help her by installing a subway tile backsplash in her kitchen, we were game. It took us just two mornings to complete, and rung in right at $200. See what I mean? No brainer.

My Aunt Liz (also known as Great Liz to our kids) moved to Richmond a few years ago, but didn’t have a backsplash put in when her new home was built. Luckily, she had chosen some nice black cabinets and a gray & back granite counter that was well suited for the addition of some classic white subway tile down the line, which she has always loved and pictured in there. These iPhone pictures aren’t doing the space much justice, but they give you a sense of where we started. And yes, when it comes to adding a backsplash, you can put it right over the drywall (even if it’s painted!) and use ready-mixed adhesive and grout to make it even easier. So let’s break down how we got it done.

Prep

Liz had already cleared off her counters when we arrived the first morning, so we jumped right into protecting everything using painter’s tape and red rosin-paper (this is a more waterproof version of your standard brown paper, both of which you can get at the home improvement store). We also removed all of the switch and outlet covers (and later, with the power off, we loosened any switches or outlets from their junction boxes).

Since a kitchen backsplash isn’t a heavy-duty super-wet tile scenario (like a shower wall or bathroom floor) you really can apply the tile directly to your painted drywall without having to tear anything down and install cement board. All it takes is just roughing up your paint job with a high-grit sanding block or sandpaper (we used 80-grit).

Hat-related side note: in taking all of these photos, Sherry failed to notice that the back of my hat was TOTALLY JACKED UP the whole time. Who has TWO tags sticking out of their hat ever, let alone for an entire series of photos and a video?? I’d encourage you to avert your eyes, but you’d miss all the pertinent visuals in this post – so just avoid staring directly at the hat if you can help it. 

Once our sanding was done, we started planning the placement of our pattern. Rather than a standard 3 x 6″ subway tile, the three of us decided this smaller 2 x 4″ tile that came in a sheet was a better scale for the space (if you’re not near a Lowe’s, Wayfair’s got the same look for almost half the price). We also picked up some white bullnose tile for the ends that wouldn’t terminate into a wall. Laying everything out beforehand helped us ensure we weren’t leaving slivers on either end, and that the pattern would look centered on the wall. I’ll show you in a minute how this all turned out.

We had measured Liz’s backsplash area on a previous visit and then purchased enough square footage PLUS about 10-15% extra just in case. It’s always important to have that around to account for breakage, miscuts, and other hiccups.

Hanging The Tile

For the next parts of this process, we made a quick video so you can see the basic steps in action. But you can keep reading below if you’re not in a place where you can watch it at the moment (or if you really hate jamming out to dope beats. Yup, I said it). Note: If you’re viewing this post from a feed reader, you may have to click through to the post to see the video. 

To hang the tile, we used a premixed mastic to adhere it to the wall. I used a small trowel to apply it to the wall in small sections at a time (I found the small trowel easier to maneuver in the tight space under the cabinets). Here are some screen grabs from the video. Again, try not to only stare at my hat issues.

Once we had a thin layer of mastic applied, we used a V-notched trowel to scrape off the excess – holding the trowel at a 45-degree angle the whole time. This not only removes extra mastic, but also creates grooves that will help the tile adhere to the wall better. Sherry and I are highly competitive about who makes the best grooves.

Once you get your groove on (ha!) you can apply your tile. The area shown here was large enough for full sheets, and as you saw in the video, we used some 1/8″ tile spacers to help keep the lines of the pattern straight and even. You’ll have several minutes of literal wiggle room before the mastic sets, but we never try to work too far in advance without taking a step back to see if anything has slipped or isn’t straight.

Cutting The Tile

Laying the tile is super easy. The only place it gets slightly complicated is when cutting is involved, so I’ll give you a few examples of the tools and tricks you might need to have up your sleeve. For instance, when a partial sheet was needed –  like when these walls called for an extra row on top of each sheet – Sherry discovered that some pruning sheers worked great for snipping the glue dots that held our sheets together (the same would work on mesh tile sheets – as would a normal kitchen scissors). We just cut a few full sheets into rows so we had them at the ready.

When a partial tile is in order (like when you bump into a light switch, outlet, or the end of the wall) we relied on a wet saw. For simple tiles like subway you can also use a ceramic tile cutter, but it will only cut along one line – so it wouldn’t work in cases like the one shown below, where I had to make that puppy look like Oklahoma. I used a pencil to mark the notch I’d need to cut out, and then took it outside to my wet saw to trim. For any first timers, a wet saw is faaar less scary than it looks. It’s actually one of my favorite saws to use because you can cut very slowly and be pretty precise.

Don’t worry about making it crazy perfect around an outlet because the outlet cover will hide a lot. In fact, if you scroll back to the top pic in this post you’ll see that the outlet cover goes all the way to the grout crack, so all of that special cutting is hidden under it anyway.

The wet saw was also helpful for cutting full sheets faster, like when we got to the end of a wall. And unlike some experiences I’ve had with cutting tile sheets on a wet saw, these were super fast and easy to do.

My saw came with an adjustable guide that also made cutting angles really easy. This would be super important if you were installing subway in a herringbone pattern, for example, and needed to cut the edge pieces (believe me, we’ve done it without one!). But in this case, we just needed it for the bullnose border pieces that we used whenever the tile didn’t terminate into a wall corner.

Ends & Borders

Speaking of those bullnose pieces, you do have to think about where and how your backsplash is going to end. If you’re lucky, it will just run right into a corner like Liz’s did on the stove side of her kitchen, in which case there’s no border necessary (since the raw cut sides of the tile aren’t visible thanks to them butting up against the side wall).

Speaking of that side wall, we could’ve opted to turn the tile and continue it along the side wall but there wasn’t a natural stopping point (the counters stick out much further than the upper cabinets, so it could look awkward to stop at one but not the other). Just going wall-to-wall along the back always makes for a nice clean look.

On the opposite wall, however, we didn’t have any walls to terminate into – which is where that bullnose edge detail came into play. You can see how we used a 45-degree angled cut at the top corners to make sure each exposed edge had a finished bullnose, not the unfinished side of a regular tile.

Along this stretch of wall, we chose to install the tile wherever the existing granite backsplash ran, which seemed to look the most intentional (like they had always been there, installed together at the same time). In the past we have removed that short piece of granite so the tile can go right to the counter, but in this case they worked so well together it felt better to leave it there – especially since it wasn’t worth damaging someone else’s granite counters in an attempt to get it off.

Grouting & Caulking

We finished all of the tile cutting and installing in about 5 hours (it was mostly all of the outlets and switches on that one wall that ate up a lot of our time). We let the mastic set overnight and came back the next morning to remove our spacers, lay down fresh paper, and begin grouting. We used premixed grout (for the first time!) in a light gray for the slightest bit of contrast… and I’m undecided on it. Maybe I’ve just been mixing my grout too watery all of these years, but I found this to be a little on the dry side, which made it harder to spread quickly and without it crumbling off the wall and falling onto the counter. But it certainly was nice to skip the mixing step, so I’d happily give it another try to get more practice.

You can see grouting in action in the video, but it basically involves using the float to smoosh it (technical term, I promise) into all of the gaps between tiles. It takes a bit of pressure and some back-and-forth, up-and-down motion to make sure it catches in every seam – but it’s a relatively easy, albeit tedious process. Once you’ve got it in every seam, drag your float over the tile at a sharp angle to wipe off excess from the tile surfaces.

Once you’ve let your grout set for a few minutes, use a barely damp sponge to wipe along the surface of the tile. This will help remove any leftover grout on the tiles and also smooth the grout within the seams. It doesn’t take much pressure or water at all. You may find you want to go back for a second pass a little while later, once it’s set even more within the seams (this helps to take the haze off the tile itself).

You’ll also want to caulk the edges where the tile meets your counter, your cabinets, and/or the walls. We bought a caulk that’s color-matched to the light gray grout we used (both were “Silverado”), so it wouldn’t stick out like a big white border. We like to tape off the areas that are about to be caulked, leaving just a thin gap for where the caulk will go. Then just squeeze a small line of caulk along the seam, and use a wet finger (dipped in a cup of warm water) to smooth it. Be sure to pull your tape off as soon as you’ve got it smoothed to your liking. Do NOT wait for the caulk to fully dry before removing your tape. Note: this caulk went on lighter than the grout and scared us for a second, but it darkened to be a perfect match when it dried. 

Finishing

Often the finishing touches are buffing and sealing. You may find a grout haze appearing on your tile over the next 24 hours. Once the grout has had a full day or so to set, use a non-shedding cloth (like microfiber or cheesecloth) to buff the surface of the tile. It may take some elbow grease in certain places, just be carefull not to press into any grout lines – especially if they show any signs of not being fully cured. Some tiles or grouts may require sealing also, but neither of ours did in this case. You can read more about that in this post if yours do.

After that – you’re ready to enjoy your new backsplash! Which, without tooting our own horns too much, Liz was very excited to do. She’s been in this house for about three years and has always known the kitchen needed something like this. So it was fun to be able to help her make it happen… and for just $200! Note: we did three walls of Liz’s kitchen, so for anyone who might just need one or two areas of tile, it should be even cheaper – especially if you order the Wayfair tile we later found, which is almost half the price. 

The only downside to this project is that we may have opened up a can of worms for Liz (we all agreed she should extend the Revere Pewter wall color from her nearby living room into here). But that’s a project for another day! And maybe another nephew? Just kidding. Well, maybe not. Love you, Liz!

And if this is just the nudge you needed to do what we should’ve done in our first kitchen (#backsplashregrets), here are some tile options we hunted down that would work really well for a backsplash update:

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10

If you guys want more info, tutorials, and photos of other tile projects in our house – here are some other installs we’ve documented:

Installing A Small-Scale Herringbone In Our Laundry Room

Installing Marble Herringbone Around A Fireplace

Installing Porcelain Floor Tile In Our Laundry Room

Installing Large Stone Tile In An Outdoor Area

Installing A Penny Tile Backsplash In Our Last Kitchen (Getting Started, Cutting Tiles, Grouting, Removing Haze)

Removing An Old Shower Tile Border and Installing A New One

Installing A Subway Shower Surround & Marble Floor (And Grouting It)

Speaking of installing tile, we’re bound to have a lot more of it coming up in our beach house soon. I can’t tell if I’m excited or intimidated. Three showers, three bathroom floors, a backsplash… *gulp*

Psst- We’ve heard from a bunch of people that Facebook and Instagram algorithms aren’t showing as many of our posts as they used to, so people are missing when we say “there’s a new blog post about ___” and later they see something that has changed in our house and ask “wait, when did you do that?!” So it seems that the best way to stay on top of posts is just to swing by our blog, where we typically post once or twice a week. Maybe just dropping by on Mon and Thurs is a good way to keep from missing new things? You can always go right to http://ift.tt/1Or03h8 to see the latest thing at the top of the page. Wish IG and FB were less maniacal in their ever-changing algorithms! 

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Installing A Subway Tile Backsplash For $200 appeared first on Young House Love.

Installing A Subway Tile Backsplash For $200 published first on http://ift.tt/2qCHnUt

[vincentbnaughton]

Installing A Subway Tile Backsplash For $200

One regret Sherry and I have about our first house is not doing a tiled backsplash as part of our kitchen makeover. Best I can remember, we wanted an easily changeable “pop of color” in the form of good ol’ fashioned paint instead (and we spent a lot on that makeover, so it was a cost saving measure as well). If only we had known how cheap and easy a backsplash could be if you install it yourself! Now having several tiling projects under our belts – including the backsplashes in our current kitchen and our last kitchen – it feels like a no-brainer.

We even added a backsplash to our laundry room (here’s how, and here’s the full room reveal), which made a gigantic difference with just 13 tiles. So when my aunt asked if we’d help her by installing a subway tile backsplash in her kitchen, we were game. It took us just two mornings to complete, and rung in right at $200. See what I mean? No brainer.

My Aunt Liz (also known as Great Liz to our kids) moved to Richmond a few years ago, but didn’t have a backsplash put in when her new home was built. Luckily, she had chosen some nice black cabinets and a gray & back granite counter that was well suited for the addition of some classic white subway tile down the line, which she has always loved and pictured in there. These iPhone pictures aren’t doing the space much justice, but they give you a sense of where we started. And yes, when it comes to adding a backsplash, you can put it right over the drywall (even if it’s painted!) and use ready-mixed adhesive and grout to make it even easier. So let’s break down how we got it done.

Prep

Liz had already cleared off her counters when we arrived the first morning, so we jumped right into protecting everything using painter’s tape and red rosin-paper (this is a more waterproof version of your standard brown paper, both of which you can get at the home improvement store). We also removed all of the switch and outlet covers (and later, with the power off, we loosened any switches or outlets from their junction boxes).

Since a kitchen backsplash isn’t a heavy-duty super-wet tile scenario (like a shower wall or bathroom floor) you really can apply the tile directly to your painted drywall without having to tear anything down and install cement board. All it takes is just roughing up your paint job with a high-grit sanding block or sandpaper (we used 80-grit).

Hat-related side note: in taking all of these photos, Sherry failed to notice that the back of my hat was TOTALLY JACKED UP the whole time. Who has TWO tags sticking out of their hat ever, let alone for an entire series of photos and a video?? I’d encourage you to avert your eyes, but you’d miss all the pertinent visuals in this post – so just avoid staring directly at the hat if you can help it. 

Once our sanding was done, we started planning the placement of our pattern. Rather than a standard 3 x 6″ subway tile, the three of us decided this smaller 2 x 4″ tile that came in a sheet was a better scale for the space (if you’re not near a Lowe’s, Wayfair’s got the same look for almost half the price). We also picked up some white bullnose tile for the ends that wouldn’t terminate into a wall. Laying everything out beforehand helped us ensure we weren’t leaving slivers on either end, and that the pattern would look centered on the wall. I’ll show you in a minute how this all turned out.

We had measured Liz’s backsplash area on a previous visit and then purchased enough square footage PLUS about 10-15% extra just in case. It’s always important to have that around to account for breakage, miscuts, and other hiccups (plus you want to keep some extra tile afterwards, just in case you ever have to replace a tile that cracks or something down the line).

Hanging The Tile

For the next parts of this process, we made a quick video so you can see the basic steps in action. But you can keep reading below if you’re not in a place where you can watch it at the moment (or if you really hate jamming out to dope beats. Yup, I said it). Note: If you’re viewing this post from a feed reader, you may have to click through to the post to see the video. 

To hang the tile, we used a premixed mastic to adhere it to the wall. I used a small trowel to apply it to the wall in small sections at a time (I found the small trowel easier to maneuver in the tight space under the cabinets). Here are some screen grabs from the video. Again, try not to only stare at my hat issues.

Once we had a thin layer of mastic applied, we used a V-notched trowel to scrape off the excess – holding the trowel at a 45-degree angle the whole time. This not only removes extra mastic, but also creates grooves that will help the tile adhere to the wall better. Sherry and I are highly competitive about who makes the best grooves.

Once you get your groove on (ha!) you can apply your tile. The area shown here was large enough for full sheets, and as you saw in the video, we used some 1/8″ tile spacers to help keep the lines of the pattern straight and even. You’ll have several minutes of literal wiggle room before the mastic sets, but we never try to work too far in advance without taking a step back to see if anything has slipped or isn’t straight.

Cutting The Tile

Laying the tile is super easy. The only place it gets slightly complicated is when cutting is involved, so I’ll give you a few examples of the tools and tricks you might need to have up your sleeve. For instance, when a partial sheet was needed –  like in our case we needed one extra row on top of each sheet – Sherry discovered that some pruning sheers worked great for snipping the glue dots that held our sheets together (the same would work on mesh tile sheets – as would a normal kitchen scissors). We just cut a few full sheets into rows so we had them at the ready.

When a partial tile is in order (like when you bump into a light switch, outlet, or the end of the wall) we relied on a wet saw. For simple tiles like subway you can also use a ceramic tile cutter, but it will only cut along one line – so it wouldn’t work in cases like the one shown below, where I had to make that puppy look like Oklahoma. I used a pencil to mark the notch I’d need to cut out, and then took it outside to my wet saw to trim. For any first timers, a wet saw is faaar less scary than it looks. It’s actually one of my favorite saws to use because you can cut very slowly and be pretty precise.

Don’t worry about making it crazy perfect around an outlet because the outlet cover will hide a lot. In fact, if you scroll back to the top pic in this post you’ll see that the outlet cover goes all the way to the grout crack, so all of that special cutting is hidden under it anyway.

The wet saw was also helpful for cutting full sheets faster, like when we got to the end of a wall. And unlike some experiences I’ve had with cutting tile sheets on a wet saw, these were super fast and easy to do.

My saw came with an adjustable guide that also made cutting angles really easy. This would be super important if you were installing subway in a herringbone pattern for example (believe me, we’ve done it without one!). But in this case, we just needed it for the bullnose border pieces for where the tile didn’t terminate into a wall corner.

Ends & Borders

Speaking of those bullnose pieces, you do have to think about where and how your backsplash is going to end. If you’re lucky, it will just run right into a corner like Liz’s did on the stove side of her kitchen, in which case there’s no border necessary (since the raw cut sides of the tile aren’t visible thanks to them butting up against the side wall).

Speaking of that side wall, we could’ve opted to turn the tile and continue it along the side wall but there wasn’t a natural stopping point (the counters stick out much further than the upper cabinets, so it could look awkward to stop at one but not the other). Just going wall-to-wall along the back always makes for a nice clean look.

On the opposite wall, however, we didn’t have any walls to terminate into – which is where that bullnose edge detail came into play. You can see how we used a 45-degree angled cut at the top corners to make sure each exposed edge had a finished bullnose, not the unfinished side of a regular tile.

Along this stretch of wall, we chose to install the tile wherever the existing granite backsplash ran, which seemed to look the most intentional (like they had always been there, installed together at the same time). In the past we have removed that short piece of granite so the tile can go right to the counter, but in this case they worked so well together it felt better to leave it there – especially since it wasn’t worth damaging someone else’s granite counters in an attempt to get it off.

Grouting & Caulking

We finished all of the tile cutting and installing in about 5 hours (it was mostly all of the outlets and switches on that one wall that ate up a lot of our time). We let the mastic set overnight and came back the next morning to remove our spacers, lay down fresh paper, and begin grouting. We used premixed grout (for the first time!) in a light gray for the slightest bit of contrast… and I’m undecided on it. Maybe I’ve just been mixing my grout too watery all of these years, but I found this to be a little on the dry side, which made it harder to spread quickly and without it crumbling off the wall and falling onto the counter. But it certainly was nice to skip the mixing step, so I’d happily give it another try to get more practice.

You can see grouting in action in the video, but it basically involves using the float to smoosh it (technical term, I promise) into all of the gaps between tiles. It takes a bit of pressure and some back-and-forth, up-and-down motion to make sure it catches in every seam – but it’s a relatively easy, albeit tedious process. Once you’ve got it in every seam, drag your float over the tile at a sharp angle to wipe off excess from the tile surfaces.

Once you’ve let your grout set for a few minutes, use a barely damp sponge to wipe along the surface of the tile. This will help remove any leftover grout on the tiles and also smooth the grout within the seams. It doesn’t take much pressure or water at all. You may find you want to go back for a second pass a little while later, once it’s set even more within the seams (this helps to take the haze off the tile itself).

You’ll also want to caulk the edges where the tile meets your counter, your cabinets, and/or the walls. We bought a caulk that’s color-matched to the light gray grout we used (both were “Silverado”), so it wouldn’t stick out like a big white border. We like to tape off the areas that are about to be caulked, leaving just a thin gap for where the caulk will go. Then just squeeze a small line of caulk along the seam, and use a wet finger (dipped in a cup of warm water) to smooth it. Be sure to pull your tape off as soon as you’ve got it smoothed to your liking. Do NOT wait for the caulk to fully dry before removing your tape. Note: this caulk went on lighter than the grout and scared us for a second, but it darkened to be a perfect match when it dried. 

Finishing

Often the finishing touches are buffing and sealing. You may find a grout haze appearing on your tile over the next 24 hours. Once the grout has had a full day or so to set, use a non-shedding cloth (like microfiber or cheesecloth) to buff the surface of the tile. It may take some elbow grease in certain places, just be carefull not to press into any grout lines – especially if they show any signs of not being fully cured. Some tiles or grouts may require sealing also, but neither of ours did in this case. You can read more about that in this post if yours do.

After that – you’re ready to enjoy your new backsplash! Which, without tooting our own horns too much, Liz was very excited to do. She’s been in this house for about three years and has always known the kitchen needed something like this. So it was fun to be able to help her make it happen… and for just $200! Note: we did three walls of Liz’s kitchen, so for anyone who might just need one or two areas of tile, it should be even cheaper – especially if you order the Wayfair tile we later found, which is almost half the price. 

The only downside to this project is that we may have opened up a can of worms for Liz (we all agreed she should extend the Revere Pewter wall color from her nearby living room into here). But that’s a project for another day! And maybe another nephew? Just kidding. Well, maybe not. Love you, Liz!

And if this is just the nudge you needed to do what we should’ve done in our first kitchen (#backsplashregrets), here are some tile options we hunted down that would work really well for a backsplash update:

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10

If you guys want more info, tutorials, and photos of other tile projects in our house – here are some other installs we’ve documented:

Installing A Small-Scale Herringbone In Our Laundry Room

Installing Marble Herringbone Around A Fireplace

Installing Porcelain Floor Tile In Our Laundry Room

Installing Large Stone Tile In An Outdoor Area

Installing A Penny Tile Backsplash In Our Last Kitchen (Getting Started, Cutting Tiles, Grouting, Removing Haze)

Removing An Old Shower Tile Border and Installing A New One

Installing A Subway Shower Surround & Marble Floor (And Grouting It)

Speaking of installing tile, we’re bound to have a lot more of it coming up in our beach house soon. I can’t tell if I’m excited or intimidated. Three showers, three bathroom floors, a backsplash… *gulp*

Psst- We’ve heard from a bunch of people that Facebook and Instagram algorithms aren’t showing as many of our posts as they used to, so people are missing when we say “there’s a new blog post about ___” and later they see something that has changed in our house and ask “wait, when did you do that?!” So it seems that the best way to stay on top of posts is just to swing by our blog, where we typically post once or twice a week. Maybe just dropping by on Mon and Thurs is a good way to keep from missing new things? You can always go right to http://ift.tt/1Or03h8 to see the latest thing at the top of the page. Wish IG and FB were less maniacal in their ever-changing algorithms! 

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Installing A Subway Tile Backsplash For $200 appeared first on Young House Love.

[vincentbnaughton]

Installing A Subway Tile Backsplash For $200

One regret Sherry and I have about our first house is not doing a tiled backsplash as part of our kitchen makeover. Best I can remember, we wanted an easily changeable “pop of color” in the form of good ol’ fashioned paint instead (and we spent a lot on that makeover, so it was a cost saving measure as well). If only we had known how cheap and easy a backsplash could be if you install it yourself! Now having several tiling projects under our belts – including the backsplashes in our current kitchen and our last kitchen – it feels like a no-brainer.

We even added a backsplash to our laundry room (here’s how, and here’s the full room reveal), which made a gigantic difference with just 13 tiles. So when my aunt asked if we’d help her by installing a subway tile backsplash in her kitchen, we were game. It took us just two mornings to complete, and rung in right at $200. See what I mean? No brainer.

My Aunt Liz (also known as Great Liz to our kids) moved to Richmond a few years ago, but didn’t have a backsplash put in when her new home was built. Luckily, she had chosen some nice black cabinets and a gray & back granite counter that was well suited for the addition of some classic white subway tile down the line, which she has always loved and pictured in there. These iPhone pictures aren’t doing the space much justice, but they give you a sense of where we started. And yes, when it comes to adding a backsplash, you can put it right over the drywall (even if it’s painted!) and use ready-mixed adhesive and grout to make it even easier. So let’s break down how we got it done.

Prep

Liz had already cleared off her counters when we arrived the first morning, so we jumped right into protecting everything using painter’s tape and red rosin-paper (this is a more waterproof version of your standard brown paper, both of which you can get at the home improvement store). We also removed all of the switch and outlet covers (and later, with the power off, we loosened any switches or outlets from their junction boxes).

Since a kitchen backsplash isn’t a heavy-duty super-wet tile scenario (like a shower wall or bathroom floor) you really can apply the tile directly to your painted drywall without having to tear anything down and install cement board. All it takes is just roughing up your paint job with a high-grit sanding block or sandpaper (we used 80-grit).

Hat-related side note: in taking all of these photos, Sherry failed to notice that the back of my hat was TOTALLY JACKED UP the whole time. Who has TWO tags sticking out of their hat ever, let alone for an entire series of photos and a video?? I’d encourage you to avert your eyes, but you’d miss all the pertinent visuals in this post – so just avoid staring directly at the hat if you can help it. 

Once our sanding was done, we started planning the placement of our pattern. Rather than a standard 3 x 6″ subway tile, the three of us decided this smaller 2 x 4″ tile that came in a sheet was a better scale for the space (if you’re not near a Lowe’s, Wayfair’s got the same look for almost half the price). We also picked up some white bullnose tile for the ends that wouldn’t terminate into a wall. Laying everything out beforehand helped us ensure we weren’t leaving slivers on either end, and that the pattern would look centered on the wall. I’ll show you in a minute how this all turned out.

We had measured Liz’s backsplash area on a previous visit and then purchased enough square footage PLUS about 10-15% extra just in case. It’s always important to have that around to account for breakage, miscuts, and other hiccups (plus you want to keep some extra tile afterwards, just in case you ever have to replace a tile that cracks or something down the line).

Hanging The Tile

For the next parts of this process, we made a quick video so you can see the basic steps in action. But you can keep reading below if you’re not in a place where you can watch it at the moment (or if you really hate jamming out to dope beats. Yup, I said it). Note: If you’re viewing this post from a feed reader, you may have to click through to the post to see the video. 

To hang the tile, we used a premixed mastic to adhere it to the wall. I used a small trowel to apply it to the wall in small sections at a time (I found the small trowel easier to maneuver in the tight space under the cabinets). Here are some screen grabs from the video. Again, try not to only stare at my hat issues.

Once we had a thin layer of mastic applied, we used a V-notched trowel to scrape off the excess – holding the trowel at a 45-degree angle the whole time. This not only removes extra mastic, but also creates grooves that will help the tile adhere to the wall better. Sherry and I are highly competitive about who makes the best grooves.

Once you get your groove on (ha!) you can apply your tile. The area shown here was large enough for full sheets, and as you saw in the video, we used some 1/8″ tile spacers to help keep the lines of the pattern straight and even. You’ll have several minutes of literal wiggle room before the mastic sets, but we never try to work too far in advance without taking a step back to see if anything has slipped or isn’t straight.

Cutting The Tile

Laying the tile is super easy. The only place it gets slightly complicated is when cutting is involved, so I’ll give you a few examples of the tools and tricks you might need to have up your sleeve. For instance, when a partial sheet was needed –  like in our case we needed one extra row on top of each sheet – Sherry discovered that some pruning sheers worked great for snipping the glue dots that held our sheets together (the same would work on mesh tile sheets – as would a normal kitchen scissors). We just cut a few full sheets into rows so we had them at the ready.

When a partial tile is in order (like when you bump into a light switch, outlet, or the end of the wall) we relied on a wet saw. For simple tiles like subway you can also use a ceramic tile cutter, but it will only cut along one line – so it wouldn’t work in cases like the one shown below, where I had to make that puppy look like Oklahoma. I used a pencil to mark the notch I’d need to cut out, and then took it outside to my wet saw to trim. For any first timers, a wet saw is faaar less scary than it looks. It’s actually one of my favorite saws to use because you can cut very slowly and be pretty precise.

Don’t worry about making it crazy perfect around an outlet because the outlet cover will hide a lot. In fact, if you scroll back to the top pic in this post you’ll see that the outlet cover goes all the way to the grout crack, so all of that special cutting is hidden under it anyway.

The wet saw was also helpful for cutting full sheets faster, like when we got to the end of a wall. And unlike some experiences I’ve had with cutting tile sheets on a wet saw, these were super fast and easy to do.

My saw came with an adjustable guide that also made cutting angles really easy. This would be super important if you were installing subway in a herringbone pattern for example (believe me, we’ve done it without one!). But in this case, we just needed it for the bullnose border pieces for where the tile didn’t terminate into a wall corner.

Ends & Borders

Speaking of those bullnose pieces, you do have to think about where and how your backsplash is going to end. If you’re lucky, it will just run right into a corner like Liz’s did on the stove side of her kitchen, in which case there’s no border necessary (since the raw cut sides of the tile aren’t visible thanks to them butting up against the side wall).

Speaking of that side wall, we could’ve opted to turn the tile and continue it along the side wall but there wasn’t a natural stopping point (the counters stick out much further than the upper cabinets, so it could look awkward to stop at one but not the other). Just going wall-to-wall along the back always makes for a nice clean look.

On the opposite wall, however, we didn’t have any walls to terminate into – which is where that bullnose edge detail came into play. You can see how we used a 45-degree angled cut at the top corners to make sure each exposed edge had a finished bullnose, not the unfinished side of a regular tile.

Along this stretch of wall, we chose to install the tile wherever the existing granite backsplash ran, which seemed to look the most intentional (like they had always been there, installed together at the same time). In the past we have removed that short piece of granite so the tile can go right to the counter, but in this case they worked so well together it felt better to leave it there – especially since it wasn’t worth damaging someone else’s granite counters in an attempt to get it off.

Grouting & Caulking

We finished all of the tile cutting and installing in about 5 hours (it was mostly all of the outlets and switches on that one wall that ate up a lot of our time). We let the mastic set overnight and came back the next morning to remove our spacers, lay down fresh paper, and begin grouting. We used premixed grout (for the first time!) in a light gray for the slightest bit of contrast… and I’m undecided on it. Maybe I’ve just been mixing my grout too watery all of these years, but I found this to be a little on the dry side, which made it harder to spread quickly and without it crumbling off the wall and falling onto the counter. But it certainly was nice to skip the mixing step, so I’d happily give it another try to get more practice.

You can see grouting in action in the video, but it basically involves using the float to smoosh it (technical term, I promise) into all of the gaps between tiles. It takes a bit of pressure and some back-and-forth, up-and-down motion to make sure it catches in every seam – but it’s a relatively easy, albeit tedious process. Once you’ve got it in every seam, drag your float over the tile at a sharp angle to wipe off excess from the tile surfaces.

Once you’ve let your grout set for a few minutes, use a barely damp sponge to wipe along the surface of the tile. This will help remove any leftover grout on the tiles and also smooth the grout within the seams. It doesn’t take much pressure or water at all. You may find you want to go back for a second pass a little while later, once it’s set even more within the seams (this helps to take the haze off the tile itself).

You’ll also want to caulk the edges where the tile meets your counter, your cabinets, and/or the walls. We bought a caulk that’s color-matched to the light gray grout we used (both were “Silverado”), so it wouldn’t stick out like a big white border. We like to tape off the areas that are about to be caulked, leaving just a thin gap for where the caulk will go. Then just squeeze a small line of caulk along the seam, and use a wet finger (dipped in a cup of warm water) to smooth it. Be sure to pull your tape off as soon as you’ve got it smoothed to your liking. Do NOT wait for the caulk to fully dry before removing your tape. Note: this caulk went on lighter than the grout and scared us for a second, but it darkened to be a perfect match when it dried. 

Finishing

Often the finishing touches are buffing and sealing. You may find a grout haze appearing on your tile over the next 24 hours. Once the grout has had a full day or so to set, use a non-shedding cloth (like microfiber or cheesecloth) to buff the surface of the tile. It may take some elbow grease in certain places, just be carefull not to press into any grout lines – especially if they show any signs of not being fully cured. Some tiles or grouts may require sealing also, but neither of ours did in this case. You can read more about that in this post if yours do.

After that – you’re ready to enjoy your new backsplash! Which, without tooting our own horns too much, Liz was very excited to do. She’s been in this house for about three years and has always known the kitchen needed something like this. So it was fun to be able to help her make it happen… and for just $200! Note: we did three walls of Liz’s kitchen, so for anyone who might just need one or two areas of tile, it should be even cheaper – especially if you order the Wayfair tile we later found, which is almost half the price. 

The only downside to this project is that we may have opened up a can of worms for Liz (we all agreed she should extend the Revere Pewter wall color from her nearby living room into here). But that’s a project for another day! And maybe another nephew? Just kidding. Well, maybe not. Love you, Liz!

And if this is just the nudge you needed to do what we should’ve done in our first kitchen (#backsplashregrets), here are some tile options we hunted down that would work really well for a backsplash update:

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10

If you guys want more info, tutorials, and photos of other tile projects in our house – here are some other installs we’ve documented:

Installing A Small-Scale Herringbone In Our Laundry Room

Installing Marble Herringbone Around A Fireplace

Installing Porcelain Floor Tile In Our Laundry Room

Installing Large Stone Tile In An Outdoor Area

Installing A Penny Tile Backsplash In Our Last Kitchen (Getting Started, Cutting Tiles, Grouting, Removing Haze)

Removing An Old Shower Tile Border and Installing A New One

Installing A Subway Shower Surround & Marble Floor (And Grouting It)

Speaking of installing tile, we’re bound to have a lot more of it coming up in our beach house soon. I can’t tell if I’m excited or intimidated. Three showers, three bathroom floors, a backsplash… *gulp*

Psst- We’ve heard from a bunch of people that Facebook and Instagram algorithms aren’t showing as many of our posts as they used to, so people are missing when we say “there’s a new blog post about ___” and later they see something that has changed in our house and ask “wait, when did you do that?!” So it seems that the best way to stay on top of posts is just to swing by our blog, where we typically post once or twice a week. Maybe just dropping by on Mon and Thurs is a good way to keep from missing new things? You can always go right to http://ift.tt/1Or03h8 to see the latest thing at the top of the page. Wish IG and FB were less maniacal in their ever-changing algorithms! 

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Installing A Subway Tile Backsplash For $200 appeared first on Young House Love.