Why did I choose these tiles?

The road to kitchen backsplash has been a long and tedious one. It actually began back in September when Home Depot had a sale on small glass tiles on sheets and we quickly snapped them up. The tiles sat in our garage for six months while we worked away on other projects. Then one day I said "I hate these tiles." Jeremy quickly replied with "I never liked them." Typical dude.

We decided to have some fun with our new selection and get our friends involved. I posted a poll on Facebook:

I could not BELIEVE the response. So many people voted and it was so much fun to get our friends involved in the renovation. We ended up picking the small tiles on the right which were also the winner!

Now I have a confession to make: I had never tiled before. It was always something that I wanted to learn and get good at since I think a good tile job can make a HUGE difference and a bad tile job can be a major eye sore. I took a few steps in preparing myself for the task.

First, I did what any Millennial would do and YouTubed it. I really liked this video from the DIY Network. 

Second, I made sure that I had access to a wet saw. For glass tiles this is a must. Make sure that you cover up though because you will get wet! 

Third, I made sure I had music and beer, because duh.

Guess what I learned once I got started? Working with tiny hexagon tiles are a huge pain in the ass! Eureka! I ended up cutting up a ton of those little tiles in order to work around all of the outlets and the window. Running a small tile through a rather large saw with your hands is kind of sucky and Jeremy was convinced that I was going to cut my hand off. 

Even though it was a ton of work, it started taking shape with some patience.

After many hours and several beers I was finally done!

Here are my takeaways from my first tiling job:

1. If you want to avoid making cuts, try using square mosaic tiles. You should be able to cut around the outlets much easier while limiting the cuts you need to make.
2. Thin-set should be the consistency of creamy peanut butter. Watery thin-set drips everywhere and does not allow your tiles to stick properly to the wall. 
3. Turn off the power when working around outlets! You would think this would be common sense, right? Well I am "special" and apparently need to learn the hard way. After several shocks, I swallowed my pride and finally flipped off the circuit breaker. Yes I know. I don't want to talk about it. 
4. Wipe off as much grout as possible before going over your tile with a sponge. Wiping off all the grout was by far the most annoying part of the job. It felt endlessly messy and after rinsing my grout sponge about a million times, I wished I would have been way more diligent about wiping off excess grout with the float before going over it with the sponge.
5. Buy grout caulk for tough spots and edges. Trying to make clean lines with a grout float is really hard and quite frankly unnecessary. When you pick up your caulk, find a matching caulk grout to use for the outside edges and tough to reach spaces like cracks between your cabinets.

Overall I am really glad that this project is done and I feel way more confident about tiling the front entry way after this process. In retrospect I wish I would have picked a slightly easier tiling project for my first go around but we live and we learn, right? 

Until next time!