Kitchen Tile Backsplash

You may not have known this, but I (Doug) have done several tile jobs over the years. When we got our own house, I knew I would want to do some custom tile. We decided to do a tile backsplash in the kitchen. We also are doing tile in the bathroom which we will post on next week.

The inspiration for our kitchen and the color sceme came from my favorite cooking show, "Tyler's Ultimate." This is with celebrity chef Tyler Florence. Here is a picture:

(This man and Bobby Flay are my heros)

Notice how he has green subway (3X6) tile on the back wall. I love this look. I asked Laura if I could tile the walls with the same green tile. She was not feeling the whole wall thing so we comprimised and only went half way up the walls. This tile was no easy find. We had to custom order it to get the special green apple color.


First I had to put blue board up where I took out the old drywall. Blue board is basically waterproof drywall.


On top of that I attached Hardy Backer Board, which is designed for tile installation.


Here is the bad boy tile saw that I had to rent in order to get nice clean cuts in my tile. It only costs $40 per day to rent one of these.


To mix the mortar I recomend using a drill mixer. You just attach it to your drill and mix away. It saves a lot of time and effort and gives you a real good mix.


This corner is the focal point of the Kitchen when you look in from the living room and front entrance. I am taking care to make sure that these tiles are straight and perfect. Everything will build off of these.


Two done...


Here is the starter row. That wood block will be removed later.


This saw is a "wet" saw. It runs water over the blade to prevent it from getting too hot.


Making progress...


Laura filmed a nice time-lapse video which we will post very soon.


It is hard to see, but I am using green tape here to hold these tiles in place. After building the top half, I installed the lower half from the top down so I could build off of my starter row.


Almost done...


The next day it was time to grout the tile. First you have to push the grout into all of the gaps between the tiles.

After that, you go back and wipe off the excess with a grout sponge. This will leave a white haze on the tile. No worries, it just buffs right off when the grout dries completely.

And here it is. Looks great doesn't it?


Now it is time to get these cabinets painted and installed. We look foward to showing you how it all looks when it is done. Thanks Tyler Florence for having a cool kitchen that inspired us to be bold with the color. We would also like to thank Laura's parents for helping cut tiles. Without them, I might still be tiling those walls.

Leave a comment and let us know what you think.