Tiling the backsplash

This is from a few months ago, but I thought I would share the pictures.

Prepping the walls for some tile love.

I considered the period of the house (1950), along with colors of my kitchen before deciding on a white subway tile.  Little did I know, white subway tile just happens to be vogue at the moment.  I guess the perk of choosing something trendy is that there are a million different online tutorials, which I needed since this was do-it-yerself.   White subway tile is also an inoffensive color, so even in 20 years I hope it will still look great (as opposed to something like electric-blue glass tile).

I used the 22 cent tiles from Home Depot.  That's right: 22 cents per tile.  Easy on the wallet.

Ready to go.

Tiling was really fun.  It was super messy, which I love. 

I took my time and laid it all out carefully, measuring and cutting and placing each tile one at a time.  I got in a sort of zen space while working on it.  I like it so much that I'm going to tile the floor and shower stall in our new basement bathroom.

Laying the tiles, row by row. 

Hidden messages behind the tile.

Mastic, applied with notched trowel, to each tile.  

Almost done. 

We didn't take a good "before" picture, unfortunately.  

These are from our house tour.  You can't tell, but those are actually decals that were peeling off the wall.   

Before...

And after!