1. have the old backsplash ripped out before I even spent one night in the new house....this was last june. I supposed I could have given it a chance, but it was at the top of my list of things to change when I toured the house for the first time...a month AFTER we bought it. (the disadvantage to buying a forecloser- Craig is down at the court house bidding and I'm driving by the front of the house texting him a picture of the place so he'll at least know what he is bidding on).
I'll have to put up before and after one day, but the old back splash started with 6 inches of black granite at the bottom with brown travertine tiles above with a black granite border and details throughout. all nice materials and pretty enough, just a completely different look than I wanted for a kitchen.
2. pick out new backsplash. sounds easy peasy. it was NOT. first, i had to decide what color. I picked white. I was thinking long, skinny pieces in a mixture of marble, frosted white glass and clear white glass. (something similar to the green tile shown at the top of this post--notice the date of that post...june of last year when I started this process).
There were 2 problems with that tile. One, it didn't exist in that combo on a mesh so I would have had to find all 3 separate and it would have been a little harder to install. (With what I have learned over the past 7 months, those things aren't big issue. the price of the separate pieces would have been comparable to a mesh since it's all just priced by square foot anyhow and tile guys are masters at what they do). the second, and bigger problem, was that craig didn't like this idea for backsplash. He doesn't have too many opinions on house stuff. He doesn't even try to hide this. When I show him carpet/paint/wood samples, he just gives me this look and says, "i REALLY don't care." This is equally a bad and good thing I've decided. BUT the backsplash was something he decided to care about. Because I think he has really good taste, I try to listen when he does have something to say. I was convinced that he didn't like this idea for tile because he had never seen it and if I could find a sample, he would change his mind. I even dragged him to a few tile stores with me ( I went to over a dozen during all this). he never changed his mind (and i never found it)
so we moved onto plan B. compromise. as his co-worker jeff says, compromise is a lose-lose situation. Craig wanted blue glass tile...similar to what was in our New York apartment. I didn't want blue because I didn't want to be stuck to a color theme in the kitchen. I wanted something neutral....are you thinking I should have stuck with the tan/black that was in there yet??? We somehow came up with sea glass blue/green glass tiles. neutral enough for me and with enough color for craig. BUT this was just an idea. We still had to find it. Which I did in about 50 different shades. It took us forever to narrow it down to the exact color we wanted, only to find out that color it didn't come in the size we wanted--which was 2x4". After seaching everywhere, I finally found it in the right color and size, but it was SO expensive. More that double the price of what I was planning to pay. So I went back to the cheapest brand I had found the right color in -$10 a square foot...from AlyseEdwards-(but they didn't have the size) and asked if they could make it in 2x4. They said sure. The markup was minimal. But it would take 4 1/2 months! to make in China and then have shipped here. If i wanted 3x6", they had it in stock in LA and would be delivered the next day! I was willing to do this, even though I really did want 2x4. (by this point we had moved into our house and I had crumbling sheetrock as a backsplash from ripping out the old stuff and I felt like dry wall kept getting in my food...........but it wasn't really). Craig was not in for the 3x6. so i ordered the right size-last September! and it came last week.
3. have the backsplash installed. This took about 1 1/2 day and they finished yesterday.
Hooray for backsplash!!
*last note-if you are not COMPLETELY bored with the backsplash talk already....I ended up doing a decorative frame border above the stovetop in 1x12" skinny tiles. they are the exact color as the other tiles, but in shiny instead of matte for contrast. I saw this idea at Mitt and Ann's condo last summer and loved it. That tile came 2 days after i ordered it.
the best part for parker? yesterday, I threw cement on a board for him and he got to make a mosaic out of all sample tiles I collected and the extra bits from the tile going up. He did it for 2 hours and said it was like doing "the funnest puzzle ever". It turned out huge-he covered more than half of that board shown above. I just have to grout it today and then I think I'll have craig cut off the extra wood and make it into a kiddie table for the patio.
