Choosing Your Kitchen Backsplash Tile

"The cabinets and counters are in place, and my contractor told me I needed to pick out and purchase my backsplash... today."

You know I wanted to say it, Today, TODAY? As in, right loving NOW?

Praise the Lord, in as many times as I heard this sentence as a designer, I didn’t.

In the name of customer service, we sing praises that these words came out instead...

“Don’t you worry, cute-self. I’l carry your quartz sample, you bring the cabinet door and we’re going to show the world that this is a piece of cake.”

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Not everybody has the largest tile showroom in the Pacific Northwest in their living room.

I knew you were going to say that –

So here’s the deal.

If you’ve got time, unlike that chic up there, make sure you start pinning your little heart out.

Jump on Houzz, jump on Pinterest and if you see something that you love, don’t question why or how, or even expense, save that bitty in a file of favorites.

Love! Love, love... Pin, pin, pinning.... See?

Easy peasy.

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​Okay now, back to the poor chic that didn’t have time.

She still did the right lovely thing. She went to a tile design house and asked somebody that works there for help, and here’s why that’s super smart.

As a tile-house designer, I worked with those tiles 40 hours a week. 

An independent designer that averages 2 projects per month, lives there about eight hours a month.

Easy math – 160 hours versus 8... One is much bigger, eh?

Because here’s the bigger deal. Tile house designers know their tile like they know their own children.

I often coined that phrase that when a tile board was missing, good gawd, everybody, stop the world....we HAVE a missing child here...

So, when you walk those pictures you’ve been pinning and saving into that tile house, he or she should be able to walk your cute self right over to that exact tile or one that is similar.

And - if all praises you have a vendor and style name of a tile, they can usually gain access to it by special order from a vendor for you.

 I mean, seriously, how cool is THAT.

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​Whoops, you forgot budget, sweet girl behind the screen.

I knew it in my very knower that you were going to say that.

Here, I’ll put you at ease again.

That designer that knows her tile like their children?

They know which ones are naughty and which ones are nice, I promise.

So trust them that they can design “champagne taste” on a beer-budget.

I know this, because I loved the challenge of it - so let them do their thing.

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​Okay, so you’ve got funwork to do here.

(See what I did there? Homework?... Funwork? – Brilliant)

Your funwork in the next couple days is to jump on Houzz and Pinterest and start collecting images of the countertops, quartz, or granite that are similar to yours with backsplash tiles that you absolutely love.

Because it’s hard to believe, but the only job you have here is to pick out things that you cannot, cannot get enough of.

That’s it.

ASD can do the rest. For reals.

So come back on Friday, and have your coffee with me, or just take a moment of pause and read.

I promise you story, I promise you laughter, and I promise you we will design like the boss.

Because you and I?

We’ve got this.