Tile Backsplash Installation Instructions

A backsplash is meant to protect the wall behind your kitchen sink from water from the sink, but it should also be a visual element of the kitchen. Creating your own backsplash with wall tiles is easy and inexpensive, and it gives you the opportunity to use just about any style and color you want. Bullnose tiles, which are finished along one edge, form the perimeter of the backsplash.

Things You'll Need

• Tape measure
• Level
• Pencil
• Sandpaper
• Tile mastic
• Notched trowel
• Bullnose tiles (enough for the backsplash perimeter)
• Standard tiles
• Tile spacers (1/8-inch)
• Grout
• Grout float
• Sponge
• Caulk
• Caulk gun

Instructions

1. Mark out the dimensions you want for your backsplash with a pencil, level and tape measure. Adjust the dimensions to hold all full tiles, with no cuts. Remember to add 1/8 inch per tile to account for the grout lines. Sand the wall by hand with your sandpaper within the marked-out area.

2. Spread tile mastic over the whole wall with your notched trowel, within the marked-out area.

3. Press a bullnose tile to one vertical edge of the area, at the bottom. Position it so the finished edge faces outward from the area. Put spacers between the tile and the countertop to separate them.

4. Press standard tiles along the bottom of the area, starting next to the bullnose tile and working your way across. Put spacers between the all the tiles, and below them, to keep them separated from the countertop. Make the last tile in the line a bullnose tile, facing outward from the marked-out area.

5. Set the next course of tiles above the first in the same fashion, starting and ending with bullnose tiles and crossing the whole width of the area. Put spacers between all of them.

6. Repeat for each course, building up the wall. Hang all bullnose tiles for the top row, with the finished edges facing upward to form the border of the backsplash. Let the tiles set for 12 hours and remove the spacers.

7. Spread grout over the backsplash with a grout float, forcing the grout into the gaps between the tiles. Don't fill the space between the bottom row and the countertop. Let the grout set for a full day.

8. Apply caulk to the space between the bottom row of tiles and the countertop, using a caulk gun or your fingers.

References

• This Old House: How to Install a Tile Backsplash