Strep throat, McDonald's, and the $200 Backsplash

It was a Monday morning that I woke up with equal parts motivation and removed patience. The kitchen in my new house was great, but it needed a little facelift. I had purposely not painted underneath the cabinets because I knew I wanted to tile the backsplash. That Monday was the day.

I went down to Lowe's, grabbed two boxes of white subway tile, some mastic, grout, and spacers, and called my contractor, Joel, to come over with his wet saw. I had measured (you multiply width by height) and knew I had about 24 square feet to cover. Not bad at $0.21 cents per 3x6 tile.

Start time: 10:08 a.m.



See what's on the wall? Not taking this little piece of granite away was a mistake I made in my last house when I did a rough edge, travertine, mosaic backsplash.

Removing it was pretty easy. I used a putty knife and a hammer to slip the granite away from the wall. Then I used the putty knife to scrape the countertop free from the leftover caulk.

Notice the other paint underneath those switch plates? Ugh. Also, the key when you remove the plates is to also unscrew your power outlets, so you can get underneath those screws with the tiles. We didn't turn off the power, but it's probably recommended. Cheers to living on the edge.



This is what she looked like before.



While Joel made the cuts, I worked on applying the ground layer of tiles. I used a notched dowel to apply the mastic and 1/8 inch spacers between the tiles. Without paying for the dowel, which I already had, I spent less than $100 at Lowes between the tiles and the rest of the supplies. The tiles only cost $22. A steal if you ask me.

Before starting, we also used a handy stick of wood that Joel had specifically cut to the size of the oven/stove. We drilled that in to help support the tiles and make sure I didn't go crooked there.

The cuts were beyond my skill level, and required a wet saw and polisher to smooth out the sides that were at the corner ends.

Four hours later, viola! This is what it looked like after the tile was complete and I finally went to shower at 2:30 p.m.

At that point, I noticed I was achey, but I thought it was just because I had been hunched over applying the tiles for so long.

But it wasn't.

Tuesday came and those sparkly tiles would stay the same. It was evident, I had a classic case of strep throat; aches, fever, and a throat that looked like something you'd see on Google images. Sorry, TMI.

I slept on the couch for the next 30 hours until I was so irritated with being sick I decided to mix the grout and finish it. (Can you tell how patient I am?)



Charcoal grout, a grout applicator, and a sponge are all you need. Apply the grout by pushing in each line, then swipe an 'X' across the pattern.

I started grouting right before a two hour window opened up at McDonald's where they were donating 20% of the sale proceeds to my kids' school. Naturally, they wanted to go. Naturally, I wanted to squeeze in grouting before we left. I knew it would take a little time to set. You don't want to wipe the grout off too fast or you will do more work than is necessary and remove more than you want as you go. So, off we went to the McDonald's drive thru. I thought, okay, 20 minutes, tops, right?!

The excess came off, but what was leftover in those grout lines took a little work to remove. I used every fingernail I have, thus staining every finger nail I have, in order to get the over-dried amount out of the the lines evenly. I thought more than once how dumb I was to have left, how ridiculous I was to have been sick and trying to do this, and feeling completely physically exhausted at the end. My hands were also raisins because I had run out of disposable gloves and I have no patience to be held up by cosmetic supplies I don't have.

The next morning, however, was a celebration! It was done. And even though my hands looked like they belonged to someone living on the streets AND working on cars, the finished product looked a whole lot better than before.

Between what I paid for supplies and what I paid Joel, I spent about $200 on this backsplash.