"Tin" Backsplash Day 1

As you know by now, I'm in full swing on doing some updates to the house. This all started out with the laminate/wood flooring we installed throughout the main living area of the house this winter. We had 2 colors of carpeting which included the dining room and old mobile home type linoleum in our kitchens and baths, so the new floor was a big undertaking for us. It was worth it...I really like it a lot. While the carpet was torn out and we were prepping for the laminate (which we installed ourselves), DH said "do you want to paint the walls while the floor is torn out?" Why, sure...all while my mom was ill....


So, I painted ahead of hubby laying the new floor. My mom was a "doer" type of person too so she enjoyed listening to our project progress during each visit. That would be her first question..."got the floor done yet?" We would laugh and say "nope, not yet." I brought her pictures on the digital camera to show her our progress. Once the floor was all laid, we took a hiatus on the baseboard trim. We're waiting for warmer weather to paint it all in the garage. So, here we sit with bare newly painted walls and a clean slate so to speak. We went from colorful, deep chocolate and wallpaper bordered and sponge-painted walls (in different rooms of course) to "fresh linen" eggshell finish paint. It's off-white and everywhere! Aaahhh, simple and fresh. The kitchen needs SOMETHING more but not much. I fell in deep like with the tin backsplash panels at Dome Hepot and decided they cost too much at about $31 a pop (18" x 18" I think). I was thinking "backsplash" in the kitchen. Hubby's raised eyebrows made me rethink that one...no way Jose. We just put in new floors and painted. No budget for a fancy backspash. 

Enter Stage Right (yes sitting on the new floor too!).....Paintable Solutions and Ralph Lauren's metallic paint! An 11 yard roll of this paintable embossed, self-pasted wallpaper cost a mere $12, yes. The paint cost more than the paper at $12.99 a quart! That's enough paper to backsplash my whole kitchen and then some. 


The paint mixer lady at Dome Hepot helped me choose a color and told me "I had thought about doing that...tell me how it works out." So, doubt she knows about this blog, so she's probably out of luck. 


Here's what I did on Day 1 of this project and keep in mind, I'm doing a test wall first...straight shot with one outlet to work around. If I don't like it, down it is coming and we'll do a Plan B. But here's what it has taken so far. First, I did a swatch sample on the wall to make sure the pre-pasted glue would be enough to stick to the eggshell paint finish which is pretty slick. It worked fine.  Then I took a square of the paper and painted it to see if I liked it even a tad...I did. Moving on....

Measured the wall area. Paper is 20" tall or so. My backsplash area between counter and cupboards is almost 15". Length was 84" so I cut 87" and will cut off the excess. Since the paper looks like a square tin, there is a whole tin that starts at the bottom and I wanted that to be at the counter top edge as I would end up with a partial square due to my measurements up toward the upper cupboard side. 

I rolled out the paper, paste side up and marked 15" from the edge I described above (whole square) at regular intervals in pencil. Then I used a yardstick to join the marks and make a straight line. Then I cut with sharp scissors on this line. This particular brand called for a 5-second soak in water, unroll out of this bath and "book" for 10 minutes before hanging. I just used my kitchen sink instead of a wallpaper water bath thingy. Booking the paper is folding it paste-side together in the middle from both sides equally and then upon itself a couple of times. Like this (above.)

BEFORE ABOVE --This is a pretty long piece to work with all at once but I didn't want any seams showing. But guess what? When this stuff gets wet it's pretty fragile. I ripped it unrolling it. Oh well, we'll see how it dries and I won't quit now! Nor waste the paper to start over. Started on the corner wall and kept the paper very even with the counter top edge. Went up great, fixed the tear fine (it was up top toward the cupboard so no worries) and here it all is drying. Note that it is darker than its dried state and it's sort of cool looking like this but about 3 hours later it was all white again as in when we started. Day 2 will bring the paint job. Wish me luck! AFTER ABOVE RIGHT


Oh, by the way, while working the wallpaper up on the wall, I use a clean small paint roller, paint pads and sponges. I couldn't find my wallpaper brush tool so improvised. Worked great to "burp" out the air pockets with the paint pad. I worked the bottom edge up towards the cupboard edge burping out the air.