The Kitchen
“The place I like best in this world is the kitchen. No matter where it is, no matter what kind, if it’s a kitchen, if it’s a place where they make food, it’s fine with me. Ideally it should be well broken in. Lots of tea towels, dry and immaculate. Where tile catching the light”
—Banana Yoshimoto
Before
What We Did
The kitchen was really outdated and desperately needed a facelift. The granite needed to be removed, along with the flooring, and the backsplash needed some definite attention. The light fixtures were also outdated but those were replaced back in stage I.
I wanted bright, vibrant colors in the kitchen but I also wanted something never seen before. I really wanted the WOW factor paired with something a whole lot of fun. The best place to introduce color was via the backsplash. Caren and I must have visited ever tile store in Houston and I wasn’t able to find anything that called out to me. So, like many others before me, I started my search on the internet to see what I could find. I came across two websites [Susan Jablon and Clayhaus Tile] that had the answer to my problem. Both allow you to custom design backsplashes [with Susan specializing in glass mosaics and Clayhaus in ceramic tiles] which gave me full control over every aspect of the backsplash. I got a lot of samples from both and ultimately went with the glass [due to it being brighter and a little more modern looking than the ceramic tiles] but both companies are the best at what they do. Susan Jablon did an incredible job bringing my creation to life and it turned out better than I originally expected. I created a random glass mosaic pattern using bright orange, bright yellow, gray, light teal and lime green while using bright white grout. The bright white grout really gives the backsplash a much larger punch.
I designed the tile with wanting more of certain colors and less of others. The numbers below show the tile count for each sheet of glass mosaics [example – 38 tiles of light teal green, 32 tiles of gray, 23 tiles of bright orange, etc. per sheet]. From most color to least color here is how I distributed the colors :
38 J1904 1 Inch Light Teal Green Glass Tile
32 J1403 1 Inch Gray Glass Tile
23 J15022 1 Inch Bright Orange Glass Tile
17 J1211 1 Inch Lime Green Glass Tile
11 J1101 1 Inch Bright Yellow Glass Tile
The backsplash was installed in the kitchen and butler pantry to go with the arctic white quartz countertops we installed in the kitchen and the butler pantry. We installed a caviar Elkay quartz sink to go along with a chrome faucet and the kitchen has been painted Extra White [SW 7006].
The granite was replaced with arctic white quartz countertops and we installed an Elkay caviar quartz sink to transition to the black island. We brought in a chrome Kraus kitchen faucet for a cleaner, more updated look. The Kendall Sputnik chandelier, along with Trent Austin’s Bedford pendant lights, give more than enough light in the kitchen to intensify the colors on the backsplash. The back door was also painted with Cruising [SW 6782] to have the office color present, but not forgotten. The converted white walls painted with Extra White [SW 7006] paint gives the kitchen a more modern look and enhances the look of the backsplash.
After
All design work and images by Cale