Finishing the kitchen back splash

We are a little late with this post, but better late then never right? After the grout cured, Marily took on the finishing role and cleaned off the tile (several times) and sealed the grout/tile one more time. I was worried for a while since the grout haze and subsequent cleanings really changed the color of the grout and tiles. Once Marily applied the sealant/enhancer, the colors came back to life and now we have our awesome kitchen back splash complete!!! Just a couple paint touch ups are needed but other then that this project is a rap! What will we start next??

This is the sink area (iPhone cameras don't do well with backlighting):


This is our "weave" work...aka Chris' corner!


View of the stove area:


Close up of the stove wall:

Day 3 Installation: Grout

Today Brian showed me how to grout the tile we installed over the last two days. I feared for the worst, since the tile was natural stone, it was jagged and uneven...not like a ceramic tile. We switched up the float we bought for a smaller one, which turned out to be very smart decision. We both were a little slow starting out this morning just after 9am...I think we were a little worn out from the previous day.

Once we mixed up some grout and starting putting it on the tiles, things moved a little faster. The grouting actually turned out pretty easy...relatively speaking and we finished up around 2pm this afternoon. We started to install the spacers for the electric outlets so the face plates would sit right on the tile. It was a pain in the you know what, but after we decided we need some longer screws due to the thickness of the tile in some locations, it was a breeze. Brian totally bailed on me to hang with his friends, leaving me to fend for myself (just kidding buddy!!!). I finished installing the spacers and then cleaned up the counters.

Next up, caulk and dehazing the tile...

Here are pictures from today (these are off my iPhone...camera battery died, I'll try to upload the rest later):

Day 2 Installation

The day started at 8AM, as I threw on the Blue Mountain coffee for a fresh ground brew to start the day off right. Mmmm, yummy coffee! My teacher was late this morning, surprising since twice this week he text messaged me between 6:30-7AM as he thought up questions about our pending tile job (Brian, not everyone starts their day as early as you!!!....it's OK, I LOVE YOU MAN!)

The day started off pretty good until I hit the corner...I like to call it "Chris' corner." It wasn't necessarily hard, but it was definitely time consuming to measure the cuts just right, since I decided to go with interwoven pattern:



The day continued pretty smoothly for my partner, a.k.a. "the master" as he finished off the second row of tile near the stove:



The most pain in the ar$e cuts were around the outlets. I must have spent the most time particularly on the one for our disposal....all in all it came out nice...I'm very proud with myself and I think it came out great! I know Marily is happy (and that's all that counts right?!) I can't wait to see the finished product....which hopefully comes tomorrow night, after spending Sunday grouting all our hard work...I personally thing it will be an "adventure" but if we are lucky it won't be so bad....time shall tell! Here are some more pictures from today's activities:



The cuts from hell...looks easy, but it wasn't!:


Me getting busy on the "professional" wet saw...this is a serious tool baby!


Look at my handy work!


Hey look, Marily the "Supervisor" even got her hands dirty and laid a few tiles, I'm so proud!



Here I am placing the final tile...its beer-30 baby!!!



Another day down....tomorrow we start at 9AM to begin our grouting fun day...I can't wait to see the results!!

Demo & Day 1 of installation

Wednesday was demo day...unfortunately no fun stuff like taking a sledgehammer to drywall, just a putty knife, hickory hammer and a pry bar. We took off the Corian back splash that was installed with the counter tops and cleaned up the walls basically to prep for the tile. Here are some before and demo shots (see I told you it wasn't exciting...it was too clean, which I know is a good thing)::



And after a couple hours work by Marily and I, here's all our tile sealed & enhanced (the colors really have come out with the enhancer):



Thursday was day 1 of the installation. We completed almost the bottom row by the stove area...just a warm up to build our confidence! Damn, it looks good if I must say so myself! Friday is a "no work" day since its Brian's wife's birthday (Happy birthday Elaine!)...so we'll be back at it bright and early Saturday morning...better brew some good coffee so there are no accidents with the wet saw ;-)

Kitchen Backsplash...the beginning

Well, it's been a while since I've posted, so I felt this was a great time to get back into it. We finally picked out a tile to use for our kitchen back splash. We found the tile (errr a picture of the tile) on another blog, did some investigative work tracing the picture to someone's photobucket account and then finally figured out the manufacturer. Sounds like a tile stalker, uh? Well, we fell in love with the tile so it had to be done.

The tile is made by Jeffrey Court and is part of there "Chapter 9" collection...specifically the Fire & Ice Quartz Brick. I treated parts of this sheet with a sealer & enhancer combo because we wanted to test how much the colors come out. You can also see on the bottom left where I tested the Dorian Grey grout. Marily and I are currently debating whether we want to stick with a grey or go with a more beige color....
My handy neighbor (Brian) and I, who is very excited about the project, are planning on starting prep work on Wednesday and doing a little here and there around work, finishing up by this Sunday...so look forward to more pictures!