House Project 5: Backsplash

The big finishing touch for the major remodeling part of the kitchen was the backsplash. See, in in installing the new cabinets and granite, they didn't quite line up to where the original ones were. Our cabinets are actually about a quarter inch deeper than the old ones, and we didn't want to risk ruining the travertine tiles when we cut a quarter inch deeper into them to fit in the cabinets (because we didn't have anything to replace them with unless we redid the whole house), so instead of just putting the cabinets on the ground, we actually floated them over the ground and attached them to the wall, just like the upper cabinets. However, this meant that they were now a quarter inch taller than the other cabinets.

Then, on top of that, Anthony wanted really big thick granite on top, and a big lip over the edge, so we needed to elevate the counters even more to make sure that we'd still be able to open our drawers after installing the countertops.

So our counters ended up about an inch or so higher than the originals. This meant that the tile backsplash still attached to the wall wouldn't work anymore - we'd be cutting into the pattern, and it wouldn't look right.

It took a lot of creativity, but we were able to find a pattern that worked and allowed us to keep some of the existing tile still in place.

This was a very very very long project. We started Saturday morning and didn't get to finish until about 3AM on Sunday. And that was just the first part of it.

Here's how the main part came out:

Now, our kitchen counters extend through the dining room, giving us a great buffet/serving area. Unfortunately, the cabinets that had originally been there were not a standard size. They were far shallower than standard lower cabinets and didn't have drawers. The original plan was to take off the backsplash in the buffet area and move it up a few inches, so that it meshed with the rest of the backsplash in the kitchen, while still showing a clear distinction. But we forgot that we were also adding depth, and we were about 6 inches short on tile.

The pattern that we used in the kitchen was far too expensive to take all the way down the room, plus it would look too busy.

So after sleeping and recovering from our endless hours of work on Saturday, I had a brilliant idea.

Unfortunately, my idea was very complicated.

I took the leftover tiles from the border (the long white-ish pieces) and then picked out some leftover scraps from the pattern (the black and tan ivory squares) where we had cut out room for wall sockets, and hand-pieced together a 6 inch border for the remaining buffet area.

Then, since it didn't seem finished off, we took a piece of flat crown molding and I painted it gold, then made a black glaze and applied it for an antiquing technique, and then painted the edges solid black, to distinguish it from the brown walls.

Here's how it looked:

It took soooo long to do, but I absolutely LOVE how it turned out!