Glass Backsplash

If you follow my instagram you know that my parents have been redoing their kitchen and have allowed me to document and help out with making decisions and repurposing existing pieces from our old kitchen. The kitchen is almost finished, just a few finishing touches left. Last week we put in our backsplash. I think it is easy to say that that project was the most difficult thus far. We spent a lot of time going back and forth between which color to use. We had gotten three color samples to bring home and get a feel for in our actual kitchen. I asked for my followers to chime in with their opinions and was so pleased with the response. It was wonderful to hear everyone’s opinion and read through their thought process behind their choice. Even after taking a vote we were stuck between two of our options. We decided to find a paint color to match and paint an area of the backsplash wall in each color so we could have a better idea of what the color would look like on a larger scale. After living with the painted walls for about a week we choose are color and were ready to get started!

We purchased glass subway tile in the Dune color from The Tile Shop in Woodbury. We worked with Jeff who helped us make a lot of quick decisions and made sure we understood what we were purchasing. He was wonderful to do business with, very friendly and throuogh. We ended up buying our tile, grout, spacers, and tile cutter from him.
A week later we picked up our tile and brought it home. When we had purchased our tile Jeff had assured us that the tile cutter we had purchased would work for most cuts. Also that if there were any difficult cuts we could bring the tile in and The Tile Shop staff could cut them for us (at about a dollar a cut). Unfortunately when we headed back to the Woodbury location with four tiles needing to be cut the staff was incredibly rude and just kept telling us that there is no way they do that, that we must have heard wrong. They didn’t look up our order or ask us any further questions in order to get to the bottom of our miscommunication.

Frustrated we left the store and just sat in the parking lot fuming, trying to figure out our next move. We tried a tile shop down the street with no luck, they didn’t deal with glass tile since it is so difficult to cut. After calling Home Depot and Lowes with no luck I decided to try other Tile Shop locations. First I called the Roseville location. We had visited that store about a month before we purchased our tile. AT the time I had a hurt foot and had to limp through their store very slowly, I was still able to make it to the back of the store and back to the front (I spent about 30 minutes in there) without a single employee acknowledging my presence there. When I called about the glass tile the gentleman I spoke with sounded shocked that I would even think they cut tile there. He assured me this was not something they did. Frustrated again I tried the Bloomington location. My experience was drastically different when I called this store. The phone was answered by an upbeat gentlemen who assured me that they “love to cut tile!” I let him know we would be there in about an hour and thanked him about ten times before ending the call.

When we got to the Bloomington location we were instantly greeted by just about every employee within a 20 foot radius. They quickly found out what we needed and called Garrett up to the front. I explained the cuts I needed, they were all marked and ready to go. Garrett did warn me that glass tile can be tricky and has a tendency to crack when being cut. I told him I trusted him to do a good job and he was off. I ended up waiting about 30-40 minutes for the cuts, I didn’t mind though since it seems next to impossible to find anyone else who could do it. By the end of my Tile Shop experience I would have to say with the exception of Jeff at the Woodbury location, that the Bloomington Tile Shop has the best staff.

Once we got back home we found that although the tile cutter we purchased worked okay it wasn’t quite up to par with Dad’s standards, and the Bloomington Tile Shop was too far away to keep driving back and forth for all the cuts we would need. We were quickly dispatched off to Henjy Rental in Maplewood to rent a wet saw. The boys in the shop are always the best. Its where we always go when we are needing to rent tools. We got the saw for the whole weekend. After a few cuts the blade wasn’t working correctly and Mom was sent out to buy a new one, she found the correct blade at Lowes after visiting a few other hardware stores. Once we got the new blade on cutting was a breeze.

The tile is so beautiful and we are so happy with the finished product. The only regret we had
was not going with a darker grout. We kept trying to get a dark tan grout and Jeff at the tile shop really worked hard to talk us out of it. In the end we should have gotten what we wanted and not let our salesmen influence us. Other than that minor detail the backsplash is perfect. I love having glass tile. I am a little crazy in the kitchen and tend to get food everywhere. With glass tile behind the stove and countertops clean up is a breeze since it is easy to wipe down with a wet rag.

Thank you again to all of my instagram and facebook followers for voting on our backsplash color! It was so fun to see everyone’s’ opinions. Also thank you to Henjy Rental and the friendly workers at The Tile Shop for supplying us with the materials to make our new kitchen beautiful!