Baby Got Back(splash)

On the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, we ventured to a huge tile store (The Tile Shop) in Wilmington with a plan to pick up some beige-colored penny tiles for our kitchen backsplash project. However, once we started perusing the many different options the store had to offer, we decided to go with a bronze hexagon mosaic tile instead. After receiving much instruction from an employee and cashing in on their Labor Day sale, we headed home with $200 worth of tiles and materials for our project.

Following much preparation the next day (covering countertops, removing switch plates, laying out materials) we were FINALLY able to start tiling. While Adam worked on attaching the tiles to the wall, I concentrated on making the necessary cuts and being OCD about how everything was lining up. Two hours later, we had only covered about a foot and a half of wall space next to the fridge and I began to get worried that the backsplash wouldn’t be finished before Christmas.

Luckily, we started getting in the groove, and by 10:00 that night, we had completed almost the entire job. On Monday morning, we woke up bright and early at 10:00 to finish up the tiles. By 5:00, we were ready to re-prep the kitchen and get our grout on. While Adam smushed grout into every crack and crevice, I followed behind wiping off all of the excess grout and doing damage control (aka vacuuming stray grout from the floors and counters). If you’ve never worked with grout before, it’s a messy process.

An hour in, we were both covered in a mixture of grout, water and sweat. What a perfect time for the in-laws to show up on their way home from the beach to check us out in all of our grouting glory! By the time we finished the grout and cleaned up (again), it was 10:00 and we were pooped. However, the backsplash looks fairly good overall and I think we’ll be pretty happy with it! I’m also extremely thankful we’ll be on vacation over our next long holiday weekend.