Kitchen | Hicks House

Remember when my kitchen looked like this:

I know I haven’t shown it live FOREVER, because in the year and half since we moved in, we haven’t really done anything in this room. But now we have a BACKSPLASH!!! And not just any backsplash, a white marble one. It was definitely worth the wait.

Once we get this room painted with the Arctic Gray, it will pop more than it currently does against the builder white walls (wah-wah).

A few reasons this took over a year 1. tile is expensive 2. deciding on a tile style, color and material is hard (it’s a big and more permanent decision than any of the updates we’ve made so far) 3. it was job we didn’t want to tackle ourselves.

So we hired it out, but don’t you worry I hover stalked the entire process so I could give a play by play 🙂

Let’s start with some close-ups of the wall pre tile.

We decided to go with a white Bianca Cararra marble in a subway tile pattern. We thought the white marble would play off nicely with the black granite and matched our more clean and modern style, while the subway pattern was more classic ensuring we won’t tire of it too quickly.

The tile guy came over equipped with a wet saw (unfortunately it was freezing) and set up in the driveway cutting a few pieces in half before getting started.

Then mixed up some mastic and started applying it to the wall in small sections.

The tiles stuck right to it, which he laid out in the subway pattern.

These tiles, being real stone were pretty thick and heavy so they started to kind of shift around. a few spacers took care of that.

Once the entire area was complete we had to let it dry for a day to fully set in before the grouting could begin. We went with a grout color called frost, it was a grayish white, although we originally planned on going with white it just seemed so stark. The frost gave the effect of blending in more with the tile making it disappear rather than stand out.

It was spread on with a trowel then wiped off with a damp sponge. Here it is right after the grouting was complete. You can see the haze it left all over the tile and the countertop. I buffed it out with a clean dry cloth.

After it was completely buffed clean, Ken used a liquid sealer to seal everything in place. We used polished marble tiles, so this step wasn’t entirely necessary, but with white tiles it made us feel better that they would remain stain free. Because of the thickness of the tile, we had to purchase longer screws to put the outlet covers back on.

This picture appears pretty dark because we’re in need of some under cabinet lighting… but you can see all the great veining and variety in the tiles.

It was all done in time for us to host Thanksgiving last week! Now we just need to paint, add some under cabinet lighting, change out all the light fixtures and make a roman shade for the window over the sink.

So what do you think? What do you have as a backsplash, or are you still figuring out what type of material to use?

As with any home purchase there are always things that come with the house that need to be fixed. With new construction the general expectation is that since the house is brand new and no one has lived there yet, the home should be in pristine condition. That was surely our expectation – however that is not the case.

There were several issues we found when we did our final walk-through with the builder the day before we closed. Since the home came with a one year warranty we figured these issues would be addressed. It’s now been almost a year and with the warmer weather the builder and his contractors have been starting to rectify some of the problems.

One of the most annoying issues to me was caused when they replaced the laminate countertops with the granite ones. The laminate was much thicker than the granite and they had CUT the piece of cabinetry that surrounds the fridge in order to shove the counters in. Well when they put in the new slimmer counters this left the exposed divot.

See that? that is raw wood. Here is another angle.

Arggg it made me so angry! Granted it was by far not the worst thing wrong with the house or the most expensive to fix, but it was the most obvious. To add to the frustration when they cut this lovely notch they cut ALL THE WAY DOWN TO THE FLOOR. So there is also raw wood showing in the toe kick area.

You’re getting angry not too aren’t you? Is there no pride in the craft anymore? Who does this?!

We were finally able to convince the builder to order a new frame piece. As luck would have it, before it came in we were notified that the cabinet company was going out of business awesome. Luckily the piece came in before they completely close up shop (along with a bathroom vanity that was also broken – although they sent the wrong one… so that’s another story) and the contractors came to put it in. They had to pull out the fridge in order to get to and remove the panel.

At this point I went to check on the plumber that was working upstairs (it was a busy day). When I came down to check on the contractors in the garage I noticed they had the panel all marked up and were about to cut.

Me: WAIT! What are you doing!

Contractor: We have to cut the panel to fit around the countertop and cabinets.

Me: Ok… but why would you be cutting it ALL THE WAY TO THE BOTTOM AGAIN? That was one of the issues we had with the old panel and the cabinet company is going out of business so we cannot get another one. It needs to be cut to fit just around the cabinet not all the way to the floor.

Contractor: Yeah, I guess I can do that…

OMG. Kill me know.

So he re-measured to cut just a notch around the cabinets leaving the nice finished wood at the bottom. Then started cutting with a Dremmel. Oh no, that’s not a typo, a Dremmel for a cut 42 inches long that is supposed to be straight. Ken, the tool aficionado informed me this should have been done with a skilsaw.

You can slap your palm to your head now. This is how they “kept it still”. After all that skilled work I guess its no real surprise that it didn’t really fit.

It definitely looks better than before but now its a total crumb catcher.

I’m hopeful that this can be addressed with a little clear silicon so that stuff can’t get caught in there and it will blend in more. (They of course didn’t do this).

However, in the meantime at least I don’t seethe with rage whenever I go to the fridge or make coffee. Here’s a side by side.

So what do you think, have you had any warranty issues with a new build or had work done and were unhappy with the results? I’d love to hear about it.