MS owns a house. As you might expect, the kitchen is not snazzy. Home Depot maple-ish cabinets, white floor, some kind of light countertop, white appliances.

She thinks a cheerful backsplash might liven the room up, but of course she doesn't have a ton of money.

I'm thinking of having Mr. Sphinx come with me to take on this project. I have done some basic research, and it sounds like the easiest backsplash to do is your basic subway tile. Maybe in colored glass, maybe ceramic.

What do you think? Are we out of our minds even to try this?

Does anyone have good color sense about what color goes with basic cabinets like these?

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Kr...AvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

It’s not a real difficult project. There are dozens of You Tube videos that show how to do it.

Subway tile has had a good run but is classic enough that installing it now wouldn’t be a problem. I have it in my new kitchen and it’s not going anywhere for a good long while.

Subway tile comes in 100 colors, and if you don’t like any of them white generally works. I like a little “liner” course about 3/4 of the way up - maybe a glass tile. Easy enough to do and a nice custom look.

I’d say give it a shot!

KraftMaid cabinets are actually very nice. And durable. Our 30 year old KM cabs look almost like new. And their customer service is amazing. We just had hinges on a corner cabinet break and they're sending us free replacements.

But back to the backsplash...installing a basic tile isn't very hard to do. You can rent a tile cutter and buy the trowel, mastic, and grout for not a lot of bucks. Oh, and don't forget the caulk for where the tile and counter meet.

Or if you get desperate, there are the self-stick variety. Some of them actually look pretty good.

https://www.homedepot.com/s/se...lash%2520tile?NCNI-5

Picking out the tile style and color, on the other hand, is a whole nother story...

I tend to stay away from what's trendy because it will look dated in no time and we keep things forever.

We have 4" square matte white tiles with a taupe (what used to be called) sizzle strip that picks up the color of the Sandstone countertop. I like the reflective nature of a light color tile to help illuminate the counter.

I have done it and it is fairly easy. The hardest bit is cutting around outlets etc. If you lay it out out ahead of time you might be able to rearrange a bit to make fewer cuts.

Also look into tile that comes on sheets. They go up a square foot at time. Faster and less fuss about each individual tile.

I did it. I actually did it on a board, then mounted the board with screws to the wall behind the stove and trimmed around it with the wood the cabinets were made out of. (That way I could do my glass tile design flat and grout it flat. (I used tiny glass tiles, not heavy ceramic tiles though).

Thanks, all. Maybe we will select and order the tile over Christmas and do the project next time we visit.

I think she needs a color, though. That is one blah kitchen. Maybe sage?

I’ll keep you posted!!

I've done it too, a couple times. Tiling is not difficult unless you use larger format tiles..then you have to get them flat.

The key is planning where you start and where your cuts go to minimize small pieces.

We do not have a window over our kitchen sink, so I put an art tile up to have some visual interest. You may notice I started at the bottom with whole tiles so my smaller pieces were at the top and not so apparent.

Mik that looks great!

Nice!

Sadly, we are about to redo the kitchen again. Not sure if that will survive.