Making a (Back)Splash

She Says:

Next came the backsplash in the kitchen.  As with our previous tiling escapades, things get a little too... intense... to take photos.  Because there's so much actual wall space (relative to the cabinets... it felt like acres of wall space while we were tiling) in this kitchen, we decided to tile everything except part of the area behind the coffee/wine bar.  (That's right, a coffee and wine bar.  Jealous much?)

He says:

Tiles recommended for a backsplash have one thing in common:  They are easy to cut around electric outlets.  We overlooked this and chose a 3" square glass tile.  This left us needing to make some complex cuts and this is exceedingly difficult to do with a glass tile this large.

She Says:

But they're so pretty!

These are hand painted glass tiles, by Bellavita Tile, the Bamboo Series, camel color.  You have to use a white thinset or mastic behind glass tiles so that the thinset doesn't alter the color of the tiles.  We used Mapei's Straw color grout.

Despite the cutting difficulties, we did get it done, and here is the result:

This is a view of the bar, cabinets are primed.

We went up and all around the garden window, and it looks fantastic!

And here's the the side opposite the window.  

BTW, besides picking a tile size that was difficult to work with, we also chose (and painted) the cabinet color before choosing our tile.  We *really* lucked out and found a tile that we loved which just happened to match our particular paint color.  Not smart, but all's well that ends well, right?