Kitchen Upgrade

It's hard to believe that the hubs and I have owned our home for coming up on four years. And for the past, oh, let's say three years, we've both wanted to upgrade the kitchen by adding a backsplash. It's hard to fry chicken without a little bit of oil popping out of the pan and landing on the wall behind the stove. Needless to say, the wall space below the cabinets is a bit difficult to keep clean and pretty when it's only painted.

Two months ago while I was in Texas for a friend's wedding, the hubs decided it was time to stop talking and start doing. So all on his own he went to the tile store and picked out and purchased a box of tiles for the kitchen backsplash. (He got lucky, I actually liked his selection). However, that's as far as the project went. That box of tiles sat on the kitchen counter all by their lonesome until July 4th weekend.

I was quite tired of staring at that box of tiles and tired of debating wether we should install them ourselves or have a professional do it. Enter the rain. See, we've had an unusually wet summer down here in Georgia and the week of July 4th was no exception. Rain. every. day. So the hubs and I made a deal, since it was too wet outside for us to do anything fun we would tackle a house project. He had a four day weekend and we had a kitchen to conquer.

Four trips to the tile store, three rounds at two different Home Depots, and six days later we have a freshly upgraded kitchen with a lovely slate tile backsplash! And I'm quite proud to say that we did it all ourselves. Turns out the hubs and I make a pretty decent DIY team (thanks to the assistance of some YouTube videos).

I am beyond thrilled to have this job finished. The kitchen, my favorite room in the house and where I spend about 90% of my waking hours at home, has a whole new feel to it. It just leaves me asking one question: why on earth did we wait so long?!

Here's the before shot. Nice enough, but nothing special.

It took us two days to get the tile on the wall (we didn't start until after 4pm the first day). Then it had to set for 24 hours before we could apply the grout.

There were so many tiny cuts to make around the windowsill and seven outlets and light switches.

The Hubs was a pro at using the wet saw by the time we were finished! Just look at those perfect cuts.

Once the grout was applied we had to wait another 48 hours before applying the sealant.

Once the sealant was applied it was just a short 12 hours before the whole project was finished.

So happy with how it turned out!