Kitchen Back Splash Project

Bane of my existence!

What began as a simple "hey let's take down that 90s looking back splash & slap up some more modern tile" turned into an entire weekend of destruction & trips to various home improvement stores.  In the end it looks absolutely amazing & has completely changed the look of the kitchen!  Friday evening we began with ripping this nasty 90s, glazed mess with an ivy design off of the wall behind the stove.  Bleh.  I should mention the home was originally built in 1949, so some things are totally updated & remodeled but some others are a bit dated.  For instance, this disgusting backsplash!  Left is a close up of the project in question, below is a better "before" picture:
 

BEFORE - kitchen

Saturday morning we were up and at 'em before 8:00am with a trip to Lowe's, then Home Depot for supplies, tile, a tile saw and other goodies.  Leave it to me to pick out something that weighs a TON and is extremely difficult to adhere to the wall surface.  Michael being a pro at almost anything and everything he does, managed to make it work.  I was a pretty decent assistant and designer, but the labor portion goes all to his credit.  We began just thinking we'd do the back splash only.  Then, my absolute hatred of the wood range hood came into play.  "Let's just rip the whole sucker out".  It was quite therapeutic ripping that nasty thing off of the wall!  This of course required much more tile (and money!) and an entire new range hood, more than doubling my estimated project cost...well, what can ya do?  The vast majority of the project was completed on Saturday, with finishing up at a decent time Sunday morning.  Mom and Mike even made it down around 1:30pm on Sunday to have lunch with us, and everything was in order and clean by that time!   

Destruction:  commence!

Ordered from Overstock.com

I was able to research and get a much better price on the range hood that we wanted by buying it from Overstock.com rather than Home Depot or Lowe's.  Here is the one I picked out, and it arrives tomorrow!  I'll update with a completed photo as soon as it arrives.  Next up:  replacing the light fixture above the sink (already purchased but I really need to give poor Michael a break...) and new counter tops!  It's amazing how updating one thing suddenly makes something else look totally crappy.   Ah, home ownership. 

Fixture to go above sink, from Home Depot

Ah!  Not good for the ol' OCD

AFTER!  (Except for range hood!)

Different view