Tile Day

You get to that point on a project house where you need to buy in tile for the backsplash and maybe the bathroom. No matter what mood my wife is in at that point she cheers up immensely as soon as she sets eyes on the tile section of Lowes/HomeDepot/where-ever we're at.

A good backsplash in the kitchen really sets it off, but you want to do it at a budget for the rental houses. Tiles get expensive real quick. What seems like "hey $10 for a tile" becomes "ah crap, I need 20". And the intricate stuff (eg in the photo) is a pest to grout. So what we've been doing is finding an accent piece on clearance for $4 a sheet, and then matching it with a standard beige tile for 49 or 59c. That way you get a nice backsplash, that's easy to go up, looks good, and doesn't cost $500.

The backsplash we're about to do will come in nothing like that. Maybe $50. The bathroom backsplash will cost a whole lot more, but again, we'll keep the cost of that down.

BUT......whilst we're in the tile department, thoughts wander to our new house and we find this tile. $12. It's a little bit different, looks better in the flesh, will look better on a backsplash and grouted. We like. So we bought one to play with. I can only guess at how many we'll need as we won't be doing an accent thing in our kitchen - this will be all the way round the kitchen for the full effect.

Have a nasty feeling we'll need 30sqft.

Back is killing me today. Probably shouldn't be lugging boxes of tile around.