Backsplashing along

Last time, I told you about my sad, drab, pastel slate tiles, which were nothing like the pretty, shiny tiles on the website. Well, we decided to use them anyway, hoping a tile sealer would make a difference in the color. First, we laid out the tiles and washed them with an abrasive natural stone scrub:

That's already better. But something bad happened. The tiles, which are stuck together on a mesh backer, started separating from the mesh! I think the mesh is made out of some kind of water soluble material, and as we scrubbed, tiles were popping off and rolling around. What a nightmare! We used flat cardboard to transport them to some plywood in the garage where we could determine what to do next.

To keep the mesh from drying and sticking to the plywood, we coated it with layers of wax paper. We then used tile spacers to re-space the tiles on the mats properly. Not all of them fell off, but a good many did.

The thing is, you HAVE to wash the tiles in order to seal them, so I don't know how other people do it. Luckily for us, the tiles were dried back onto the mats a few hours later... For the most part. We applied sealer next. The sealer we used was a color-enhancing sealer, which darkens slate and gives it a sort of glossy look. It's not a high gloss, "wet" effect, but it makes it nice and polished. Our research had shown that alcohol-based penetrating sealers were the best for natural stone, and to absolutely not use anything water-based. Our sealer was the only Penetrating/Color-Enhancing Alcohol-based sealer in the store. Perfect.

The left side shows the tile with sealer on it, and the right is without. You can see some bubbles in the sealer on this picture, because I had just applied it with a sponge. I found dabbing and blotting the sealer onto the tile was the most effective way to get it down into the slate, especially on pieces with deep ridges or pits in them. Within five minutes, you use a lint-free cloth (we used painter's rags) to remove the excess sealer.

The next morning, the sealer was totally dry and we went to Home Depot to rent a tile saw. The saw uses water to cool and lubricate the blade, so we were again concerned about those mesh backing mats, and if they'd hold up to the saw. The short answer is sort of- many tiles fell off again.

We applied white thinset mortar to the walls, using a 1/4" trowel to remove the excess. The mats were pressed into the wall, and any missing tiles were placed in by hand and we used tile separators to get the spacing right.

One thing to note about this tile is that the beehives weren't a perfectly consistent size, making the spaces uneven in some places. They're also not consistent in thickness, so in this photo, some gaps look HUGE because the shallow tiles show more mortar. We had to use a lot more thinset than expected, too. I think this is because the thicker tiles were pretty hefty, possibly. Grouting will be a challenge.

We made sure to maintain 1/8 - 1/4" spacing between the lower tiles and the countertop, protecting the counter from the mortar with painter's tape. We were able to cut the tiles for the edges and outlets by making full scale templates of our wall and openings, and laying tiles on top of it or underneath it to get the right cuts.

The tiles were kind of disappointing to work with. Aside from separating from the mats and being non-uniform, the mats weren't 12x12 as stated. They're 12" tall and about 10 1/2" wide, so we were glad we bought more than enough extras. The biggest problem was that some of the slate tile faces sheared off of the tiles. The sealed faces broke off parallel to the backsplash wall, so we had to cut out those tiles and replace them with others before the thinset cured. Slate isn't super robust, and since it's made up of layers, it's understandable that some layers might peel away, but I think Daltile should test those tiles, or find a way to identify the unstable ones. Luckily, we caught it early on and were able to look at

Eight hours later, we had a backsplash:

Now we just need to grout and apply more sealer, add some trim, and we can call this one done!

Holy kitchen!

After weeks- months- of no visible work, a miracle occurred. We went on vacation, and when we came back, our kitchen was painted. All credit goes to my lovely and incredibly talented father, who, along with my mother, came down to Texas to watch our pets and home while we took a break from the city. Remember the kitchen?

While we were gone, Dad wanted to know what we were working on. Unfortunately, the big project we needed to tackle was the kitchen. Since our last post, the oil stains had kept reappearing through the coats of paint. A quick Google brought up a product called BIN primer, which is an alcohol-based primer for all kinds of uses.

A coat of that took away ALL the seeping oil spots. In a kitchen, all of the cabinet fronts are just covered in oil. This was also true for our wood wainscot, especially near the cooktop. On top of all of that, the cabinets had been stained with some kind of gel or oil stain that was incredibly stubborn.

The problem is, the primer smells AWFUL. It must be like 100% VOC or something. It absolutely works, but every time I used it, I'd get lightheaded and sick, so I couldn't get anything done. With Andrew at work all the time, it was up to me to get the painting done, and I couldn't do it. We discussed  hiring a company to come out and paint the cabinets for us, but we really hesitated. The few quotes I'd gotten weren't promising- most people wanted to spray the cabinets, some with the doors on still. Caulking and filling problem areas would cost us a ton of money, and we couldn't be sure of the quality. Not to mention possible overspray on the new cabinets, appliances... I'm still scraping paint overspray off the bathroom tile.

Enter my dad, a man who does things the right way the first time. First, he removed the doors and sanded down the cabinets, filling divots and smoothing the surface. They already looked better:

Then, he primed and painted every surface of the boxes.

We came home to the kitchen looking like it does above. I was speechless. The cabinets I'd almost given up on (by tearing them out and replacing them!) looked beautiful. All we had to do was put up the doors. We picked up the hardware at Ikea for a steal. Here's the finished cabinets:

We removed the doors on the two cabinets above the entryways, creating cubbyholes. One holds my collection of flower vases:

And the other stores the cookbooks and recipes:

I love these cubbies, but may put some fancy paper along the backs of the cubbies to make them bright and interesting. Nothing permanent, of course. And possibly some lighting or something to brighten them up. The biggest problem in our kitchen now is getting a nice equal distribution of light everywhere.

Once we put in the under-cabinet lighting, we should have a much brighter space. But in order to do that, we need a tiled backsplash. I agonized over the right tile for this space. I was initially hoping for a plain subway tile, which just seemed too plain when I visualized it. I wanted something a little old school, and was thrilled when I saw this beehive slate from Daltile:

It's shiny and reflective and neutral enough to work with multiple color schemes in a kitchen, but it's not boring. We happily ordered it. It arrived here two days later, but when I opened the box...

Blah. I got some of the tiles wet, as you can see in the picture, to determine if the shine was going to come out with some kind of sealer or finish... I don't have high hopes. Off to read the installation instructions and call Daltile for verification on the shade... I'll keep you posted!