Monday, November 12, 2012

Aspect Backsplash Reveal

Over two months later, I finally got around to taking pictures of the finished backsplash. Honestly, my kitchen is rarely clean during the work week so that is one huge reason behind the delay.

So here we go... This is what our kitchen looked like when we moved in. This is actually before the new microwave was installed above the stove. We have a small galley kitchen so there is not a ton of wall space which kept the cost of the backsplash fairly low for us.
Not too much has changed since then, aside from switching out the faucet. We started with the stove side of the kitchen and began in the center of the wall and worked our way out.
We did not trust the peel and stick adhesive alone. I cook daily and wasn't sure if the adhesive would hold up to the heat in the kitchen. So, we applied the tiles using Loctite adhesive. Despite this is was a relatively easy installation process. The worst part? The cuts! The Aspect website offers various cutting method but you WILL need a chop saw. We also used a table saw for certain cuts.

We quickly reached the other side of the room...

However, things became much more difficult at this point. See my kitchen wall used to be an exterior wall and therefore has a "window" cut out that looks into the addition that was added in 1997. Add walls that run off and we have a cutting nightmare. I really wanted to tile all the way to the ceiling around the "window". This is the area I am referencing:

At this point, we decided it was not all going to get done in a day. We were tired and frustrated with all the odd cuts. We tackled it again the following weekend and this is what it looks like now.









The only other change is that we switched out the white switch plates for stainless steel. We are really pleased with they way it turned out. It has been up over two months and we have had ZERO issues or complaints. It is super easy to clean since there is no grout. We just wipe it with stainless steel cleaner when we clean our appliances.

Cost of tiles, adhesive and new switch plates was slightly over $300. So while Aspect tiles may not necessarily be cheaper than a traditional tile backsplash, it is great, easy DIY solution to changing the look of a kitchen.

While I love the look of the subway tile with the Santa Cecilia granite... Apect just came out with a new matte stainless Honeycomb design. Sadly, I am a little to late on that one :)


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