Kitchen reveal part 3 - The backsplash

Hola amigas / amigos! I wish I was speaking Spanish because I was prepping for, or coming back from, a vacation in Spain, but no such luck. I'm been a bit absent from blogville this week, which can be attributed to the hard work we've been doing in the kitchen, and also the crazy hours I've been pulling at (my real-life) work.

Anyways...I have exciting news: the backsplash is done! And I'm showing you tonight!

All in all - the tiling was WAY harder than I thought it would be. Maybe not harder...but time consuming. And yes, harder. It's just not  like when they do it on TV. Anyways...enough griping...onto the important stuff - was it worth it? (spoiler alert: hell ya.).

Here's a look at our prep, and adhering the tile to the wall. The first part was easy - and enjoyable. The tough part came with all the cuts - the poor Mr. was outside on Saturday afternoon/night using a wet saw (of course getting wet in the process on one of the coldest days we've had this winter!). We used 1/8" spacers between each tile:

Once the adhesive was set (we let it set almost 48 hours...partially because of the trouble the devil outlet gave us, partly due to time) and then we grouted. I really liked the idea of a light gray grout because I like how the last picture above looks with darker spaces between the tiles...but we figured since (a)we're not pros (b) this is our first ever tiling job that white grout would be safer to blend in with the tiles. Had we gotten it done professionally and all the cuts were perfect I definitely would have gone gray on grout.

The grouting was TOUGH. This is not flat subway tile where you can just slap on some grout and scrape it off at a 90 degree angle. With the bevelled edges we basically had to put grout into each crevace and then smooth it.

The real reward comes about 2 hours after you sponge off the excess grout and you can wipe off the "haze" to reveal the beautiful shiny tile! The Mr. suggested the bevelled subway tile and I was 100% with him - I think it's a nice detail to a subway tile. Here's our (almost) finished product (still needs some caulking at spots):