Everything You Want to Know About the Red House Tile Backsplash

Let’s take a closer look at the tile backsplash we added to our Red House kitchen! We’ll zoom in on the details that make the space, from grout color to edging outside corners.

Our Kitchen Has a Tile Backsplash!

If you’ve ever been through a kitchen renovation, you know that once the countertops are installed, the rest of the space is game on! Countertops open the door to tile, the sink basin, plumbing and all the details that allow a kitchen to function. Once our green soapstone counters went in, we wasted absolutely no time getting to work on tiling. Here’s how it shook out!

This post is in partnership with our friends at The Tile Shop. The Tile Shop is our one-stop-shop when choosing tile for floors, walls and more! This kitchen features Home Kit Kat in the color Milk, and we paired it with ivory grout.

The Kitchen | Prepped for Tile

The space has come a long way since we shared it here last! Our contractor, Jeremiah, absolutely nailed Kim’s design for the custom range hood. Our friends at Norman Leigh also installed our custom walnut floating shelves, which mimic the 3″ round corner of the range hood and provide a perfect stopping point for the backsplash. With these items, we were ready for a few days of tiling!

The Kitchen | Today

Prior to tile, the space looked great, albeit unfinished. There were lots of satin and matte finishes in the space, so we were excited to add some natural, glossy texture in the form of Home Kit Kat in Milk! We visited the Tile Shop in-store to see the Kit Kat tile that we thought we would be selecting in person, but then our incredible sales associate pointed us in the direction of the Home Kit Kat in Milk and we we immediately changed gears! These 5″ x 10″ tiles feature six long, slim rectangles with grout recesses between them. This gives the illusion of individual, handmade tiles but with the ease of installation of a 5″ x 10″ single tile. The natural variation in the tile plays so incredibly well with our vision of clean lines that bring the outdoors in and we couldn’t be happier that this tile exists!

Our Process for Laying Tile

As is the case in many DIY projects, planning is arguably the most important step in the tiling process. Prior to picking up a trowel or cutting a single tile, we like to do a dry flat lay of the tiles along each wall to find our center points and ensure that we won’t end up with any tiny sliver cuts along the way.

We’ll often use a faucet, a corner or similar fixture as a starting point and spread out flat lay out from there, marking and measuring along the way. This early extra effort ensures that any tricky spots are identified before we’re in the middle of the time-sensitive tile laying portion of the work.

Kim and I have tiled enough spaces together that we’ve developed an efficient workflow. Kim marks all of the cuts and sets the tiles, while I’m almost exclusively manning the wet saw. I’ve come to prefer a saw with a sliding tray like this one, as I find it to be the most accurate.

As we make progress and find our flow, we’ll often lock into a groove that requires very little verbal communication! Kim’s sharpie markings tell me what and where to cut, and she knows approximately how long each cut will take depending on the level of complication involved. This allows her to manage time and hand me things in the order that she’ll need them completed. Along with some good background music, we actually love the process, promise!

How Do You Know Where to Stop?

This is a question we receive frequently, especially during our virtual Design Consultations. In this case, we used the 28″ height of the range hood (above the countertops) and surrounding floating shelves as the vertical stopping point. As we mentioned earlier, preparation is key here! The 9.75″ true height of each tile allowed for a full piece in the middle row, with minimal trimming on the top and bottom rows.

Had we selected tile of a different height, say 8″, for example, we may have shifted the height of the range hood up or down a couple of inches to avoid awkward partial cuts. Again, these are all decisions that should be handled in the planning and layout process, long before the tile is installed. (More about that here.)

Deciding where to stop along the walls can also be tricky! Above, you can see that we decided to carry the tile around to our sliding door, which felt more purposeful and adding that beautiful texture along a larger wall. And below, you can see how we chose to tile the wall that connects the two cabinet runs, bringing cohesion to this layout and defining the kitchen space in this large linear room.

This tile calls for sanded grout to fill the shallow grooves and we found the Ivory color to be a nearly perfect tone-on-tone match! We love the way it subtly segments the tile, while complementing the tile itself.

Tiling an Outside Corner

Tiling outside corners can be incredibly tricky! Especially if your walls aren’t plumb, which they probably aren’t. There are countless ways to handle these details, but we usually prefer the clean, simple approach of metal corner trim.

For the one outside corner in this space, we selected a 3/8″ L-shaped gold trim, which was set under the tile on the short wall. The look is similar to the unlacquered brass of our light fixtures and switch plate covers. It’s a subtle detail that really only pops if you look straight at it, but it really does tie things together nicely.

And as Always, Thank You!

We shared the process in real time in Instagram Stories, and we could feel your support and hear your cheers! Thank you for always encouraging us to deliver and bring you along for these projects that can sometimes seem daunting. We truly appreciate you being here. It means the world to us.

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Looking for more tile inspiration? See how we chose tile for our Two Flat project, this step-by-step guide for tiling a backsplash, and 5 big things to consider before starting your next tiling project.