Subway Tile Backsplash Install

For me, the sawdust is where it is AT.

Wood is my medium of choice. I love how easy to cut wood is, how naturally beautiful it is. I love how it smells when you work with it, I love how functional it becomes when you use it. I love that wood is renewable, and while it renews, it renews our air. I love working with wood.

But while taking on a Momplex, we've had to work with alot of other mediums. Styrofoam blocks, poured concrete, and drywall. Drywall was definitely my least favorite.

What always amazes me, no matter the project, no matter the materials you are using, the same principles apply: start square, cut square, take your time and be precise, don't skip steps, work with your materials, think ahead. If you can do that and use a saw, you can do pretty much any DIY project around your house.

For the Momplex Vanilla kitchen, Mom-Who-Likes-to-Sew really wanted white on white on white. With our dark winters, she wanted a bright, fresh kitchen. So when it came time to tackle the backsplash, we choose white subway tile.

I also loved that the subway tile is shiny - there's no windows on this wall because it's the shared wall between the two duplex units. So the shine gives the illusion of a window or at least depth.

After DIY-ing the countertops, for easy clean up we took a second to cover the countertops with paper. Preparation is key to a successful project. It's taken me years to get that.

Because we only have about 30 square feet to cover in tile, we went with a pre-mixed thin set. It's a little more expensive, but for this quantity, we are talking a few dollars difference to have the premix over mixing it ourselves. That, and we don't have running water at the sink yet to mix and clean up, so this stuff is the ticket for us.

Per the tile we are using (following directions on the thinset), we applied the thinset to the wall. First we applied the thinset, then we used the grooved edge of the trowel to make the grooves. The grooves allow the tile to adhere without air pockets building up behind the tile.

Another note - if you are using white grout (as we are) make sure you use white thinset. I once made the mistake of not caring what color thinset I used, and I can still see it peeking out in the grout. You live and learn!

Then the tile just gets applied to the wall over the thinset.

We worked in small areas so the thinset wouldn't dry out before we got the tiles layed.

The subway tile we used is mesh backed, and you just flip it to get the tiles to stagger.

We used alot of spacer to help us keep the grout lines consistent.

Where there are no electrical outlets, things went pretty fast.

But here's where they start to slow down. We got to cut tile.

For $25 we rented a tile saw.

Grandpa Tim showed up and helped us out by cutting the tile. I liked how he used a clamp to hold the tile in place while he cut.

It's hard to see, but we did get super lucky with our tile install (but it may be something you want to plan for if you tile a backsplash). All of our electrical outlets landed exactly on the fourth and fifth row of tiles - so all we had to do was cut those tiles for the electrical outlets.