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Kenric’s guide to tiling a kitchen backsplash - Part 1

December 21st, 2006 by Kenric

It’s amazing how tiling a kitchen backsplash totally changes the look of a kitchen. The tile immediately boosts the look of a plain kitchen and turns it into a higher end looking one. Even if your appliances and countertops remain the same, the tile captures the eyes of a casual viewer. The area behind the oven is a great pallette for you to show your creative juices. Now before you think that it’s too difficult or too expensive to do yourself, let me show you how I do it.

As an investor and a lazy person, my primary concern is bang for my buck and ease of installation. I’m no expert tiler by any means. In fact, I’ve done so many tile jobs that I know which types of jobs are too difficult and time consuming. I also want my stuff to look professional when I’m done.  I’ve got a very simple process in tiling the backsplash now that I can have all the tiles set in about 60 minutes.  The next day, I just grout and in a total of two hours total work time I have a great looking backsplash.

Here are my top five rules I follow to do an easy tile job:

1) use mostly ceramic tile
2) let the space dictate your pattern
3) make your layout work for you
4) avoid internal cuts
5) buy pre-mixed mortar

Use mostly ceramic tile - The main reason is that ceramic tile can easily be cut in straight lines. To cut ceramic tile on a straight line, you only need a $35-$45 tile cutter.  You can see a video on using a ceramic tile cutter at the bottom of this link.  It’s so much easier and faster to cut ceramic tile in straight lines than using a wet saw.  I would never use porcelain tile again.  It is just too difficult to cut and too thick for a backsplash.  Sometimes, you accent pieces may be porcelain or stone, so you may have to do a few difficult cuts with a wet saw or jigsaw.  On the backsplash above, everything is ceramic tile except for the mosiac border. I had to use a wet saw for a couple real short cuts.The point is to keep the difficult cuts to a minimum.  You can buy cheap wet saw for $100 if you think you’ll be tiling alot or just rent one for the day.

Let the space dictate your pattern - If you have a 12″ wide space, then you can use 12×12 tiles with ease.  If your space is 15″ wide, it may be easier to use a 12×12 tile along with a 3″ smaller tile.  It you’re dead set on a specific pattern, then let the pattern evolve from the shape and dimensions of your backsplash.

Make your layout work for you - Since you are the one designing your backsplash, you have the freedom to change it’s look as you choose.  I go to Home Depot and buy a whole bunch of tiles and accents that I like.  I bring them home and work them like a jigsaw puzzle until I get a pattern that requires almost no cuts or mostly straight cuts.

Avoid internal cuts - Internal cuts are cuts that leave an angle within a tile.  If you understand how the tile cutter works, you’ll see that you can’t use it on an internal cut.  Therefore, you will have to use a wet saw to make the cut.  While these cuts aren’t difficult, they are time consuming and messy.  You will probably have at least one of two of use on any tile job but these can be greatly minimized by making an efficient layout.

Buy pre-mixed mortar - Although it is considerably more expensive, it saves alot of time and clean up if you just buy a bucket of ready mixed mortar.  This is great for tiling in a condo if you don’t have outside access to mix mortar in a tub.  I used to mix my own mortar until I had to do a condo and mixing indoors in the bathroom just sucked.  The best part about it is that if you need to take a break, you just cover up the bucket and come back later.

In Part 2, I’ll show of how I used these methods to design and tile a kitchen backsplash.

If you’d like to get some ideas on tile designs, here is great book with many tile designs.

Posted in Kitchen Tile Backsplashes |
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