You Really Can Tile Anything With In Reason!

Before and after Kitchen at the Beach

With in reason any solid surface can be tiled.  It has to be level and non porous.  Other than that
it is the type of material and tile you use and how you seal it after you are done.
I am known for saying that will take no time at all,  easy project don't worry about it:)
Sometimes I'm a bit off on my timing however.  This kitchen took 2 days to finish so  in my opinion that's pretty fast...maybe just not no time at all:)  My great friend and partner in remodel, Julie,  helped with this whole project.  The granite is a bit heavy and it was incredible having her help.  She is the master of detail.   She is great to work with,  we tend to think in the same direction and get great results....and a few bruises along the way,   pictures to follow:)

You can tile over Formica on a counter or a back splash and believe me removing old Formica is hard, tiring and can be very sharp.  So if it's in good shape and adhered really well leave it be.  A side note though after just doing a new tile/granite project I had to double check to see if there was good adhesion on the wall. We started and realized that the Formica was coming off... this was easy to remove,  it came off in one piece, not enough glue!
For this kitchen  I  used a combination of granite, ceramic, and glass tile.   The granite is a great product that ordered from  Oregon Marble.  It's called a mini slab.  Basically is is a huge Granite tile, 18 x 27. The front edge is finished.  You cut off the back 2 inches for a trim piece on the from of the counter. These mini slabs are a great and cost effective what to have the look of slab granite.  Using a zero grout line the way to make it look closer to slab.    It installs the same way as a tile only much faster!  A few details about granite. It's a natural stone which makes it porous,  so you have to seal it.  It just wipes on very easily.  If you don't do this your stone will stain.  And with all tile projects you need to seal your grout too,  for the same reason.  When cleaning your granite make sure to use a granite cleaner.  Something without vinegar,  like green Windex.  And make sure you don't use anything with citric acid in it.  This will etch your counter.






For the back splash I went with a simple 6 x6 ivory tile from Daltile.  Then used a beautiful glass accent piece to pull all the color in.   The great part about the glass is that it comes on a mesh sheet.  we cut it into fourths so it went along way and helped stick in our budget.
This house is at the Oregon coast so we used blues to tie the ocean feel to the house.


This was a great fun weekend project.
That was only made better by a few bottles of
wine at the end of the night I ran across this
picture,  it  sums up the great time and a
beautiful project. Of course we waited to be done
with the saw before we opened any bottles.














A few other changes we made to the kitchen.  We took out the appliance cozy, which opened up the back of the counter.  Changed all the hardware to stainless.  And put in my favorite light fixture so far.  I really just love this project.