Retiling the Backsplash: Application of Tile

Once we were finished putting cement board underneath where all of our backsplash tile would go, it was time to actually stick 'em up! This process was the easiest and most fun part in my opinion. 


The materials we used for this part were:

• the tile sheets
• a utility knife and pair of scissors (for cutting around the individual pieces/sections of tile on the mesh backing)
• glass tile thin-set mortar: we used this one, this is what goes between your wall and the tile and makes it stick
• a 3/16 trowel like this one, this is what you use to apply the thin-set and give it nice grooves to ensure suction between the tile and the wall.  
• a big bucket for mixing up the thin-set 
• a plastic butter knife, used for "back-buttering" the individual tiles when we had to put them up in mosaic fashion
• tile nippers: we had to do some trial and error on cutting our tiles since we had a combination of glass and marble. these nippers worked great for the softer marble tiles while these worked well for the glass tiles. 

This is the backerboard surface we started with: 

You can see we laid out the tiles after cutting around for the electrical outlets while the thin-set was setting up. It should be the texture of peanut butter or toothpaste.

We just worked in small sections so that the thin-set wouldn't dry on us. When it did, we just scraped it off with a chisel and reapplied.

And this is how it looked after being applied. For the pieces around the corners and the electrical boxes, it was time to get creative with mosaic. This was the most fun part! We used no rhyme or reason, just cut pieces with their respective nippers to fit and applied thin-set on the back of the individual pieces with a plastic butter knife.

At this point we felt relief because we were actually starting to have a backsplash again and we loved the way it looked. The only thing left to do was grout... 

Retiling the Backsplash: Demolition and Cement Board

Last weekend, we jumped in headfirst into a big kitchen project... retiling our backsplash! We had always planned on replacing the current backsplash with subway tiles, but at Costco one day we randomly happened upon this gorgeous glass and marble mosaic tile at an amazing price. I've never ever thought I would like any glass/mosaic tiles enough for our own kitchen backsplash, but I am so in love with this tile. We made the decision to go for it after Costco came out with a huge markdown coupon. We got each box of 5 square feet for $21, so it was about $4.20 a square foot. 

The first step was to demo the current backsplash. We knew that the tile would be adhered to drywall, and that we wanted to try to save it, but soon we figured out that was not possible. Oh well, we knew that installing cement board would be economical and would prevent mold, as well as make it easier for someone to take down this tile and redo in the future. 

After we cut off the power and removed the electrical stuff, Aaron used an arsenal of tools to get that tile down. I'm not really sure he used one favorite technique, but he used a grout saw, beat on a chisel with a mallet, and used a crowbar. 

Once we got all of that tile and drywall out, we made a detailed diagram with every measurement we would need. 

Then we went to Home Depot and purchased cement backerboard, the proper screws for that, and a carbide-tipped blade. The YouTube videos make the "score and snap" method look so easy, but we had quite a bit more trouble. On the  way few pieces, we had to score it almost all the way through on both sides. Here's a big tip that saved us a lot of time later on: score it nice and good, and then place a 2x4 on one side of the score line. Have one person stand on the 2x4 and the other lift up from the other side. It snaps cleanly every time, as long as you've scored it well enough! For holes for outlets, carefully drill holes and score until you can punch out the outlet area. 

We then drilled the backerboard into the studs.

The next part will be the installation of the tile itself! In my opinion, this part was actually really fun!