One last push!

This past weekend we finally got around to the last big kitchen project and I know what your thinking - finally! We've actually had the supplies in the basement for a few months now but the time restraints of tiling made us think it needed to be done in the evenings and evenings during the first 50% of my pregnancy are not my shining hour. 

What were the supplies? These gorgeous glass subway tiles. I wavered quite a bit initially. Everything else in the kitchen is so classic that while I thought a white subway tile would probably have longer staying/selling power, I also thought it would be a tad boring. And this is my dream kitchen people, I've worked hard for it so why not go with what I really want. Which brings us to teal - but mosaic or tile. Again, I pinned and pinned and searched and decided that a 3"x6" subway tiles would be perfect. But ordering "teal" on the internet is a bit tricky - teal can mean a lot of things to different people. So I order a "teal" sample from wholesalersusainc.com (which was recommended on several diy sites I visited) and several lush tiles from modwalls.com with cool names like "surf", "wasabi,""sea grass" and "pool."

The verdict - plain old teal (which I believe is the 5th from the left in the above picture), how anti-climactic! But luckily for us, it was the cheapest option (I didn't tell Craig which was which when we selected a color so he couldn't bias himself towards the cheap one :-)  Now onto the actual installation.

Since this whole thing has taken us about 9 months, it only seems fitting to throw in a birth analogy. This project was a bit like crowning - we really wanted to be done with the whole kitchen project and just enjoy our new room, but we had to muster up the energy for that final push :-) But Craig had Friday and Monday off and I knew my increasingly large stomach was only making time our enemy, so we got it done!

Friday was a bit rough. Not really because of the tiling itself, we just had one of those nights. Lucy was cranky and fought sleep (getting up every 30 minutes until I finally figured out her teeth were bothering her (because she bit my arm in her typical non-vindictive manner) and gave her some Tylenol. Then Craig and I had a bit of a miscommunication which lead to him coming home with the right wet saw but the wrong blade (glass tiles need a special diamond blade or they will chip). So back he went for the right blade. But when he got home again, he realized that Home Depot hadn't given him the wrench he needed to change the blade so back again. But finally, around 10:30 we started mixing up our mortar and finally getting some tiles on the wall. Craig was out in the garage cutting tiles while I placed them and marked new ones for him to cut. 

The first section is done! Because of the cuts, this ended up being the hardest section and it took a while so I was really worried it was going to take us 10 hours to tile, but things sped up from there. 

By the corner, it was about 1 am and we were both getting pretty tired. It was at this point that I was so glad I bought two bags of mortar. Each 10lb bag was supposed to cover 16-20 sq ft with our type of tile/spacers and we estimated our surface area to be 19 sq ft but I went ahead and bought two bags thinking I would hate to get 2 feet from the end and run out and they were only $20 so it wasn't a huge loss if we didn't need it. But what ended up happening was we got halfway done and I knew I couldn't keep going - but since we had that second back to start fresh with in the morning, I didn't have to!

First night's progress! (And yes, that is wrapping paper on the countertop. We looked at Walmart and Home Depot for a big roll of brown paper with no luck so we used what we had. 

Not so early the next morning, we set Lucy up in the living room with her new Winnie-the-Pooh movie and started up again. We had a slight technical difficulty here too because about 1 minute into the first morter stir (which is supposed to be 10 minutes), our drill died and we couldn't even find the charger. So I stirred it by hand with a random piece of wood we had while Craig ran up the hill to borrow one from Neighbor J's husband. It was really stressful for a few minutes but it turned out all right. And just a little over two hours later, we put the last tile into place. 

Then we had a nice 48 hours break while mortar set. Sunday night we took out all the little white spacers and cleaned out the little bit of morter that had come through. I had actually done a pretty good job keeping the mortar out of the spacers - except for the corner that we finished at 1am. I wonder why I got a bit lazy there :-) Then we could get a good idea of what the final result would look like. 

Late Monday morning, we got to grouting. We used StarGlass urethane grout, the brand recommended by both of the companies I ordered samples from. Modwalls had lots of color options but it was hard to tell the difference online and I began to hyperventilate with all the choices so when I saw that wholesalersUSA only had the diamond color, I went with that and called it a day.

Grouting was actually fairly easy, although my arms were cramping by the end. Craig followed behind me and cleaned up. We had gone ahead and gotten the grout haze remover which I would recommend. Water should get it all off in theory but it was nice having the heavier duty stuff for reassurance.

And there it is after grouting. You can't see much of a difference in the pictures, but in real life you can. The grout really made the tile pop. Of course, that also meant it made all our mistakes pop too but for our first tiling job, I think we did pretty good. The main problem is after tiling and grouting and cleaning up all the haze, you've just spent hours staring at the tile from about 6 inches away so you know exactly where every tiny mistake is. But in reality, nobody is going to look that closely at our tile ever again - and the worse spot is behind our toaster oven :-)

For anyone contemplating a glass tile backsplash, here are a few things I learned:

- Do it! It really isn't that hard and looks awesome.

- Just don't do it while you're pregnant. Leaning over a counter and placing tiles is hard on your back to begin with, but when your center of gravity is already messed up, it's not a good idea. And if you do it anyway, make sure you schedule your chiropractic appointment for the week after the project, not the week before, or at least stock up on Tylenol.

- Knock down the mortar grooves. I read different things on whether you should or should not flatten the grooves/notches after making them but I went ahead and did it. The fear of not doing it is seeing shades through the glass (this isn't an issue with regular ceramic tile). I think the fear of doing it is that your hold isn't as good but I didn't have an issue with that.

- Keep a credit card handy. (Or if you are a no-credit family, use a grocery store card :-) The trowels that you buy are huge so if you have any tiny areas to cover (like the one-tile tall area between our sink and window or tight corners), it won't be much use. I used the credit card to guesstimate the thickness.

- Keep the grout lines clean of mortar. It seems like a pain to worry about that when you feel like you are under pressure to get the tiles up before it sets, but it is sooo much easier to get the wet mortar out than to have to go back and clean it up later. Trust me.

- Do it! Okay, I said this already but even with all our random troubles, it was a pretty easy project. I'm not eager to jump right into another tiling project, but I won't rule it out for our future either (unlike drywall, which I would rather sit through 2 days of constant Snuggle Puppy singing than ever have to do again).

And the end result? Overall, I love it! Of all the design decisions I made, this one was the one I was most worried about but the tile did just what I was hoping it would. It took a nice but boring kitchen and gave it some personality and added just a touch of the vintage look back in.

Wait, you want to see to see the whole finished kitchen now? Too bad! You'll have to wait and come back  tomorrow!