We have tile!

"Tilechick", aka my sister, Trinity, drove from Omaha to the great city of Casper on Thursday to help us tile the backsplash. I can only surmise that she couldn't think of a way to renege on her earlier promise to help us and the poor thing felt obligated to follow through. Or maybe she just wanted to experience the gale-force winds which were howling through Casper. Whatever the reason, we are grateful because we have a tiled backsplash now!! I think she sensed my fear and trepidation to begin because she didn't hesitate to get the show on the road Friday morning as she slapped that first tile on the wall. Once we got going and I got the routine down, it actually progressed very smoothly. We tiled from 8:17 a.m. Friday morning until about 6 p.m. Friday night with a short lunch break.

Believe it or not, we did not break one single tile. And even though we made some plan changes during the middle of the tiling, we ended up with 4 whole glass tiles left. Course there's a box an a half of the ceramic tile and an extra container of grout but better too much than too little is my motto.

I thought Dean would be spending the day tapping his foot, hovering over us and getting bored waiting for us to call upon him to cut a tile. As it turned out, the poor guy was constantly running back and forth from the kitchen to the garage, from the garage to the kitchen, back to the garage, then the kitchen....cutting tile after tile. And he was literally running sometimes. I could tell he was getting tired as the day wore on because every now and then I'd hear him trip on the stair as he was running in from the garage with the latest tile in his hand. He survived the project with all his fingers in tact and only one small cut on his thumb from a shard of glass. By the time he even realized he'd cut it, he'd left a trail of blood from the kichen, down the hall, to the garage.

Saturday was grout day and as you will see from the photos it's messy. I discovered I'm just as big a pig with grout as I am with paint although I somehow managed not to cover the bottom of my feet with it. Sunday all we had to do was give the tile one more wash, put all the switch plates back on, put everything away and admire our handiwork. Woo hoo! Now there is "only" painting the walls and staining the woodwork left.

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We have tile!