Backsplash Progress...FINALLY!

As you've surely noticed, I've been promising for WEEKS (maybe even MONTHS) now that I would get around to tiling my backsplash.  It was the final piece of the kitchen puzzle (other than maybe adding some cute curtains or a shutter to the window above the sink) that has been lingering for far too long.  Well...I have exciting news!  I finally got around to it this past weekend.  YAY!  I'm not going to lie and tell you that it was fun or that I would happily do it again...it wasn't and I wouldn't....BUT I am SO happy that it is done!!  And a little proud too for doing it all myself.  I never doubted that I would be able to do it (necessarily), I just wasn't sure that I could do it well....which in my opinion is probably worse!  Why do something if you aren't going to do it right?  I am such a perfectionist too, so I know that I would zero in on all of the mistakes EVERY SINGLE DAY.  Thankfully, it was easy to do a clean and consistent job (thanks to spacers and a handy-dandy level), so I'm very happy with the results.  Even a little impressed.  I love it when I accomplish something that I have never done before.  It is a total sense of empowerment.  Who needs men when you can just do it all yourself? 

Ok...there are definitely some legitimate arguments in favor of having guys around (especially since B spent his weekend finishing up the stairs and railings on the deck....to be discussed later), but I like to think that I can handle most things on my own.  Like I said, it's a bit empowering.  And...even better than that is the fact that we saved a lot of money going the DIY route.  We already had the tile cutter and trowel from our bathroom update and we are planning to use the leftover gray-colored grout from that project as well to finish up the backsplash (we thought that the gray would break up the white-on-white that we have going on between the cabinets and the backsplash).  The only expenses were the spacers (since we wanted a significantly smaller line between these tiles than we had for the floor tiles in the bathroom), the thin set mortar (we chose Omni Grip for extra durability, but regular thin set mortar from HD works fine as well...they were around the same price since Omni Grip was on sale, so I just went for it) and the subway tiles themselves.  Luckily they were all pretty inexpensive at Home Depot.  The spacers ran around $3 a bag, the mortar was around $15 and the tiles were $.23 each (or $55.20 for three boxes/240 tiles), so we ended up around $73 for the entire project.  Not too shabby, eh?

I still have the grouting step to do, but just installing the tile has really brought the whole kitchen design together.  I am really happy with the results!  And I know that I said earlier that I wouldn't do it again....but I probably would.  In all honesty it wasn't that difficult, it was just VERY time-consuming.  Measuring and making the cuts take up most of the time (especially since I set up the tile cutter/wet saw in the garage and was running in and out of the house to make cuts every few minutes).  Once I got in a groove of laying them though, it went pretty quickly!  The areas around the light switches/outlets and the space above the range hood were the biggest time-suckers!!  All in though, I probably spent about 12 hours just laying the tiles and I am anticipating about 3 hours for grouting.  That's 15 FREE hours of labor....although I am paying for it in backaches this week.  Ugh!  Well worth the pain, though!  Seriously.  And I promise that if I can do it, so can you!

So that's it for the backsplash update.  I will keep you in the loop on the grouting process (which will hopefully happen tonight.....fingers crossed) and also share some more news from our very productive DIY weekend (hint: curb appeal)!!

Happy Wednesday!!  Catch you all tomorrow.