Kitchen Paint & Tile Back Splash

As you can see, my kitchen needs some love. Since I'm a chef and my form of therapy is cooking, I need my kitchen to be my own get-a-way of sorts. I started with the wall color of course.

I wanted a Tuscan kind of feel but couldn't go with the rich colors I really wanted because my home is really shady. I was going for terra cotta, but it turned out more of a rosy hue. It still works, so I'm going to love it as is and rest my weary painting arm.

We also left a lovely self portrait behind the fridge for the next owners to enjoy!

Now onto the tile back splash. We bought those cool glass tiles that come on a mat. The optimist in me said, "We can do this, no problem. They show how easy it is on the Home Depot commercials!" My husband looked up the you tube videos (Which actually works most of the time. He fixed our washing machine and both toilets from you tube!) and after online research, we were on our way.

We applied 2 coats of sealant to the wall. Which actually turns out to be a superfluous step, but at least we know we'll never have water damage! Now that you know we already got off to a rocky start, let me lay out the things to do, and what NOT TO DO!!!

1. Go to the FREE clinics at Home Depot or Lowes. Suck it up and enjoy bonding time at your local home improvement center. ---Why, you ask? Apparently, there are tons of different techniques, for different tiles and different rooms. You would spend the same time researching as you would just going to the class. Easy peasy!

2. Grout is peanut butter consistency, the Jiff kind, not the natural kind that breaks your knife when you try to stir the oils back in. You may need to use more water than it originally calls for, and add more as you're working and it starts to dry.

3. The grout box says to wait 2 hours then wipe off excess grout . . . . . THEY LIE! The grout should be firm enough to barely leave an indent from your finger nail, but not hard. I pulled an all nighter cleaning hard grout off the tiles.

I had a lot of "help" for all that scrubbing!

4. How to clean off dried grout. Lots of green scrubbies, a non-scratch cleaning brush, a plastic scraper, and LOTS of elbox grease. You can use straight vinegar, or dilute it by half with water, what ever works best, and scrub, scrub, scrub! Don't saturate the grout during this process.

5. To take off the haze, wait 24 hours after finishing the grout and use clean wet sponges to wipe down. Rinse the sponge in between wipe downs. Repeat this process with clean water every time until it dries clear. I probably wiped down 6-8 times. You might need to apply a sealant after using all that water - ask an expert.

6. Stove top designs are important! Over time the flying grease will stain tiles and grout. If the design is slightly different than the rest of the kitchen, you probably won't notice the stains. Measure your space above the stove and play around with your options BEFORE you put it on the wall.

This was option 1.

This was option 2.

We went with option 1 and it looks great! Maybe not as great as a professional, but we love it. I hope you learned from our goofs and good luck to you on your future projects!!

My next post will feature my distressed cabinets that I love!