Madmonk, I had to show you our handiwork since you were so helpful! I can now add Tile Installer to my level of expertise.. ha,ha.. okay, the way the camera angle looks, the tile on the closeup looks crooked but it's not.. (we used a laser)..

The colors aren't quite right in the pic either and I just put a sealer on it .. it will lighten a bit.

The granite is Emerald Pearl with abalone/pearl flecks and tan/gold colors running through it.

The Backsplash is multi-colored slate.
http://img365.imageshack.us/img365/8198/abacksplash006wq4.jpg

http://img365.imageshack.us/img365/7289/sshower017cg9.jpg

We had to take full diamonds off the 12 x 12 sheets and cut them in half to put on top and bottom.. by hand. Then we had to cut the Brick pieces..and the pewter rope. The Pewter rope (6 inches had to be placed perfectly as well.. we had about 75 pewter pieces.

http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/5479/angiesshower014xf3.jpg

Our kitchen is pretty big although it doesn't show on the pics..
We had 90 sq ft of granite and over 120 linear feet of backsplash. A lot of work!

Anyway, wanted to share with you how it turned out.. I love it! Thanks again!

http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/504/abacksplash011ib8.jpg

Okay, here is the other side of the kitchen. I'm just so amazed that we did this by ourselves... I keep waiting for a huge section to fall off....

I just wish I could get the color right.. I keep playing with my camera but can't quite capture it!

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/277/abacksplash009mm1.jpg

Now I have to be a little more patient and hope the oven/microwave/dishwasher goes out soon because as soon as it does... stainless steel appliances will be here.. any ideas on how to nonchalantly break an appliance without it being too obvious ..I mean, can they all go out simultaneously.. lol.. just kidding.. I just hate to change them out when they are working fine.. but that's on my wish list..

Anyway, I'm still so amazed that we actually did this by ourselves! I keep going in to look at it over and over ..:rolleyes:

WOW! That looks awesome! Really nice against the dark counter top. You may have motivated me to look into doing something like that in our kitchen. BTW, we have that exact kitchen faucet setup in our kitchen. I put it in last year with a new sink. :)

Did you have anything as a backsplash before or was it just the wall? We have a large laminate backsplash that matches our countertop and I would like to get rid of it (along with the countertop, but that's a whole 'nother project). :D

Thank you Madmonk! I couldn't wait for you to come online so you could see it!!

We had a tile backsplash 4x4 ceramic tiles.. Don had to actually cut out all of the sheetrock and put new sheetrock up. ( I tried to remove it but it was pulling off all of the sheetrock anyway).

Then we found the tile we liked at the tile store but it was $13.79 a sq ft.. ouch! That was just for one 12"x12" sheet (the Diamond Harlequin pattern was really expensive) but I found similar tile in Ebay for only $3.29 a sq ft! Had it shipped from Texas and the rest is history.. the Pewter rope is at Home Depot.. those were the worst as they were only 6 inches.. we had to have over 130 of those - and they were almost $2 each.. but we had to have something to separate the brick pattern from the diamond.

This was pretty time intensive. We had a guy come out that Don worked with and he had told Don it would cost about $250.00 to install it.. he came out, took one look at the detail work involved and never called back! Now I know why! We literally cut the diamond tiles in half individually and placed them top and bottom by hand.. it was scary! But I'm so happy with how it turned out... grout is a pain to remove by the way.

Let me know if you need the tile guy on Ebay..or anything else.. it worked out really well.

Madmonk, Don just reminded me to tell you to put the countertop first before any backsplash because we had to remove the bottom part of our former backsplash 1 inch so the granite would fit ( it's thicker than laminate/formica).

karried congrats that is a great job and very beautiful

What a beautiful kitchen! I'm remodeling all of the rooms of my recently purchased home and am now envious of your kitchen. Haven't started on the kitchen yet but you had great ideas for the pattern and eye appeal. Might steal some ideas.

Every time I look at it I like it even more. You should be very proud of a great job like that. The pewter details are great and you really showed some creativity. I bet those top/bottom diamond edges were so tedious to cut - please tell me you rented a wet saw!

I'd really like to do something like this in our kitchen, but I'll wait until we have the money to do the countertop first - that's smart advice. Maybe I'll start on something small, like a bathroom counter and backsplash. But I have to be careful, that's how my last huge floor tile project got started, as a "small" bathroom project, and I just paid off that bill with tax return money! ;)

Thank you everyone.. it does feel great to accomplish something that we did with our own hands.. I was so scared to try it but now I'm feeling glad we did it.. I can't imagine another person installing it taking the time to get all the details just right.

The wetsaw.. we actually were going to rent one at Home Depot ..I think it was 45.00 but that was for one day only and with this job, it took a few days. So we bought one for $88.00 and we now have it. Thankfully, we went that way because like you mentioned MadMonk, the diamond peices all had to be cut in half.. and then glued individually back into place top and bottom and we needed the saw longer than one day.

I really like the sealer/color enhancer we used because before using it, the colors were almost a mint dusty sage green color.. the sealer really brought out the details.

I have one more question for anyone who does tile. We currently have floor tile.. ceramic, 8 x 8 I believe.. we don't like it and want to re-do it eventually. I know some people have said you can lay new tile over existing tile if you take off the baseboards and have enough room.. has anyone every heard of this?

I know the best way would be to remove the old tile but that would be a nightmare to try to get that out and scrape the concrete. I'm thinking we would have to fill the existing old grout to make it level first .. anyone ever tried this?

I havent laid tile over existing tile. HOWEVER, when my husband and I moved in here and began to pull up the carpet in the kitchen (yup, i said carpet) so we could tile we sure got a surprise. Here's why: 4 layers of flooring, yay. Green carpet, then tan laminate, then white flowery laminate, then tile. lol. We were like, why did these people hate their future home buyers? Everything the people had done they just took the easy way out and did it over the stuff they didn't like. So then it took us even longer to do things the right way. I have always heard that tiles are more liekly to break if you tile over existing tile because of the risks of unlevelness and such. But I dont see how it would be a problem if it was level. If you think you'll love the floor and will keep it forever and someone that does tile ok's it then I would do it. Just remind me not to buy your house if you sell it, lol. I swear, I'm building next time.

lol.. I have to agree with you there.. we will be building no doubt about it.. we bought this house knowing it was a 'fixer upper' -

We're still fixing it up four years later.. it's never ending.

It had wallpaper in every room.. ugly, ugly wallpaper..one bathroom was burgundy/hunter green vertical strips ... Fruit paper in the kitchen, huge flowers in the master bathroom.. I thought I Had died and gone to wallpaper hell.

So, after years of repainting and texturing and tiling.. we'll get it just the way we want it and then sell it! lol

I love our neighborhood and the location, the lot and the schools.. I'm just not crazy about the floor plan or the house itself.

Your bathroom sounds exactly like ours! And our house had wallpaper everywhere as well. The only thing we one-upped you on was broken mirrors on the wall in our bedroom (awwww yeah, mmmhhhmm). haha. There were literally 3 layers of paint and wall paper in every room. Once we removed the wall paper in the front bathroom my cousin came over and textured and I have to be honest, he did an absolutely horrible job. I am stuck with the way it looks for a while until I finish the rest of the house (well at least somewhat), then I will go back and re-do it. I told my husband I hate texture anyway. I can't wait to do wood flooring everywhere, I love the bamboo but it's probably pretty expensive.

I found a cool product that doesn't need texture.. it's called Paper Illusion and you can find it at Lowes or Ebay... I love it.. so simple!

http://discount-wallcovering.com/Paper%20Illusion.htm (http://discount-wallcovering.com/Paper%20Illusion.htm)

I did three bathrooms with it... at the very bottom of the page there is a link to a video.. it is the easiest fix I've found for non texured walls.

We are adding on and the way I did the texture look in my daughters room was using the mud to sheet rock and I watered it down not to thin but where I could work with it for a few minutes before it started to dry. I took a broom and while it was still wet made some lines in it.. It is not to thick and it worked out great. We did that last year but now my daughter needs a bigger room so we are tearing down a wall to make her room bigger.

I am going to sand the room down and take off the texture. this time I am going to make it a smoother look. I did not like the texture look even though it hid the flaws of the sheetrock job we did with me having a broken arm(building her a closet) .

We are going to add built in bookshelves in her bedroom so I am making the walls smooth. I will send you pics of the before and after this weekend.. I have to tell you tho she is into GOTH and her room well I call it the suicide room.. Dark green and black... UGGGGGGG!!!!!! Cant wait till she outlives that craze...

Her room right now is 12 x 14 and we are taking the spare room and making it part of her room as a library . It will soon be L shaped and I am looking forward to sanding the walls down and getting rid of the texture look and those dark walls.

our add on looks like an old barn so in the spare living room we did picket fences on the wall with copper lights. That is where the steps that comes from the main living room are. We did those in a semicircle and put the pickets on those too.. We will paint the spare living room a eggshell white with red trim. Everything in the add is old style..

Wow, that's a project! You'll have to take pics Before and After.. Can't wait to see it.. I love seeing home projects.

Maybe we should open a new forum.. Home Improvement Topics ?

I have one more question for anyone who does tile. We currently have floor tile.. ceramic, 8 x 8 I believe.. we don't like it and want to re-do it eventually. I know some people have said you can lay new tile over existing tile if you take off the baseboards and have enough room.. has anyone every heard of this?

I know the best way would be to remove the old tile but that would be a nightmare to try to get that out and scrape the concrete. I'm thinking we would have to fill the existing old grout to make it level first .. anyone ever tried this?
I wouldn't recommend tiling over existing tile. I've never seen it done, but with the thicknesses of ceramic tiles, i think it would turn out horrible You might get away with tilling over vinyl (I considered that), but not other tiles. Just think about how much higher you'd have to trim your door trim and the huge transition jump from the tile to another flooring like carpet or wood. You'd have to put down that black and yellow warning tape with a "watch your step" sign. :D

The absolute best way to get up that old tile is to rent a chipping hammer. It's like a mini electric jackhammer with a wide blade. When I was re-tiling our entryway, we had existing 6x6 white tiles that would not go well at all with our new flooring idea. The total space wasn't huge (something like 6'x8' or so). I had attempted to take up the tile with a small 3lb sledge and a mason's chisle. It took me all day to do a single row of 6" tiles!

A friend at work heard my griping about it and told me about the chipping hammer. I rented it at RSC for a 1/2 day (about $20) and I had the rest of the tiles up in about an hour. It's a messy, dusty job so put up plastic sheeting around the work area if you can. Safety glasses and a dust mask are a must. You also have to be careful because that chipping hammer will dig into the underlying concrete pretty easily. It doesn't take too much effort to get up the tiles. I am so grateful for my coworker cluing me in to the easier way. It would've taken me a week to get up just that little area doing it the hard way.

That paper illusion stuff looks pretty interesting. When we pulled off the old wallpaper in our bathroom we didn't want to mess with trying to texture the walls to match the rest of our house. After looking at the different faux finishes available we settled on a sponge-painting technique. I prepped the walls with primer and the base coat and my wife took care of sponging on the top coat. I wasn't really thrilled with the results because I was looking for a more subtle type of finish, but my wife loves it. I'll have to post some before/after shots so you can see what I mean.

I will take come pics of her room this weekend.. I dont go home till Friday night so I will take some of the whole add on.. Course we are not even close to finished thank good we have the part of the house to live in...

Wow HottCutz, you're nice to your daughter! lol. Hope she feels loved! I agree we should have a forum over Home Improvement topics. I have some before and after pics I need to post from December when we moved in and started doing work. I just want to say, although it's girly, I have recently been unhappy with my dining room, even though I already remodeled it. But I went to Garden Ridge and bought some of the spring flowers (fake) they had 50% off and made a new center peice for my table and it totally changed my mood regarding the room. That one small, beautiful peice completely changed the mood of the room its self. Weird how something so small can make such a big impact.

Well she is my only child and a teenager to boot.. since she is an avid reader we thought this would be perfect. I will post pics on Sat

Good post Karried. I've been waiting do re-do our countertops and backsplash in our kitchen and bathroom. We bought this downtown fixer upper condo last summer and have totally redone it. Put up a bar made out of stainless steel flashing, wood floors, added a walk in closet, painted all rooms, and much more. Redoing the floor tiles in the entry and bathroom as well as the countertops is my next project. I've done tilework before but its been a few years, luckily my dad and brother are more experienced in it.

Where did you end up getting your granite at, etc? I probably won't need to worry about it but like to have options. One of my best friends dads own's Oklahoma's largest and most unique tile dealer Paschal Tile on Reno so I'm sure I'll get a good discount.

It's a lot of work isn't it? But well worth it... usually the kitchen and bathrooms will get the best return on your investment and hard work.

I got my granite at Northwest Building Supply. I'm a little undecided about recommending them though. I have to say.. they broke the sink piece three times and when they finally cut a piece that didn't break they came out to install it separately from the rest of the kitchen. Well, they completely installed it, put a sealer on it and left. We hooked up the faucets, cut the plumbing pipes and then buffed the sealant off.. Imagine our surprise when we realized the sink piece was really off color.. I was so bummed! I didn't know what to do so I sent pics to the salesperson after about a week of looking at it.. he was mortified that they put it in. He said, we want you to be happy, which I loved to hear because at that point, I thought there was nothing to be done. It was epoxied in and the undermount sink was in.. it was solidly installed. Well, we ordered our granite and it was finally, finally completed in January.
The guy who originally installed it came back with the new peice and said " I can't believe I installed that!" lol.. so... they did fix it and believe me, it took hours for him to redo it and get it out.. but we had to redo the plumbing and faucet again at our time and expense and it took months to get it all right. So, long story short.. they messed up but made it right. Price was right..they had a nice special and compared to Home Depot, it was a lot less expensive. http://img71.imageshack.us/img71/6738/graniteoct2006038zv1.jpg