Kitchen Remodel Phase IV: Tile Backsplash

We have finally started the LAST phase of our kitchen updates! The last post I made here was Phase III where we finished the countertops right before Thanksgiving. Our intentions were to finish the backsplash and be done before Christmas.....needless to say things did not work out that way because the holiday season is crazy! So early in January we regrouped and came up with a plan of action. God bless my sister-in-law Teri for loaning us her wet saw and tiling supplies! We officially picked out our tiles but discovered that the 1/4 round tile we wanted for a transition piece had to be ordered. They told us it would take 2 weeks to come in but ended up taking 3.....we picked it up last week and got to work!

Here is a reminder of the "before" shot with white laminate backsplash all around.....

A few things I want to state before going on--we have never done tile work before. We basically watched tons of videos and how-tos online to teach ourselves the tricks. We did not remove the laminate but we did sand it. The counters are not the most level (which we discovered while relaminating them) and neither is the backsplash. Nick was afraid that regular mastic (used to adhere the tile to the wall) would not stick well to the laminate so he decided we should use Liquid Nails....don't judge!

We have 3 walls that have a backsplash--two are pretty long, and one is shorter and hidden beside the fridge. We started with that short wall just in case anything messed up and so we could get used to the routine.

First we glued down a row of the 1/4 round black tile as our transitional piece. They are 6" wide and 1" tall. This took a couple of hours because we had to figure out how to use the wet saw, how we wanted to glue, if we wanted to go from left to right or vice versa.....we may or may not have argued a bit....The next day we glued the 1/4 round tile along the rest of the edges on the other 2 sides, then came back on the short wall (that was now dry) and began the row of our 6x6 tile.

We immediately encountered some pesky outlets and switches to cut around but thanks to my crafty mind we did that without troubles. I measured/traced the outline, and he cut.

On the long wall above our kitchen sink we had to maneuver around outlets AND a wonky window sill which left us with a tile that had to be cut like this.....

When we moved the stove out I had to get creative because there was no counter for the tiles to line up with and rest on while drying. I nailed our level onto the wall and used that for my temporary "counter" to maintain my straight line across the wall.

The weather was so cold the last couple of days that the water froze in the lines of our wet saw! We had to postpone tiling until today when it was a bit warmer. We finished up the last few 6x6 tiles on one wall then began the strip of mosaic tiles! They are a combination of stone, metal, and glass tiles that go perfectly with our new kitchen. They cut much quicker than the porcelain tiles and are almost like fitting a jigsaw puzzle together! We are saving every little piece that gets cut off to use for filling in gaps around edges and outlets. The mosaic tile was the most expensive of all the tile so we don't have any room for mistakes on it.

Today we finished the mosaic tile on two of the walls, and ran out of glue before we could finish the third long wall. Tomorrow we will get back to it and start on the next row of more 6x6 tiles. I am off this weekend and hoping that we will get it DONE.