It's been a few weeks since there's been any significant progress in my kitchen remodel. I must admit, the down-time has been nice. But after waiting more than 6 weeks for our custom blended glass mosaic tile, this pat holiday weekend provided the opportunity to get back into gear.



The job could have been easy. It's only a 6-inch backsplash after all. But I complicated it by recessing those LED lights behind the tile and by selecting an oddly-shaped tile and by the fact that it's glass. As it turned out, the shape of the tile caused the biggest issue.

As you can tell from the photo, the tiles are basically a horizontal diamond shape. Because of this shape and the fact that I needed the tile to line up as best as possible with the recessed LEDs, I ended up needing to cut some very small triangles to fill in the entire top and bottom edges of the backsplash. The triangles worked out to be 4 inches on the long side and only 1/4 inch tall. I suspect that most tile installers would have told me that the pieces couldn't be cut that small. I thought otherwise. So I spent upwards of 5 hours standing at the wet saw with my fingers less than a 1/4" away from the blade cutting hundreds of these little slivers of glass. Because they were so small, I had to cut each one individually and had to make each cut in two passes (cutting half way through from each side) in order to avoid breaking them in the process. Still, there was about a 15% loss rate. Needless to say, it was the most tedious part of the entire kitchen remodel so far.



I still have to grout the tile which will happen sometime this week, but getting all of those cuts made and the tile put on the wall was a major milestone. Once I get the grout done, I'll finally be able to install the cooktop and faucet which means I'll also be able to install the disposal and hook up the dishwasher. By the end of this next weekend, we should have full functionality. All we'll need then is cabinet doors and pulls.

The end is near!!