Putting up the "peel and stick" metal tiles :)

       Have you seen those peel and stick tiles at the hardware store and thought... I wonder how that works? Well, I have. So when we took out the old hanging microwave there was this disgusting bent up metal piece. It was just hanging all crooked saying, "Fix me!" And by saying fix me, I was hearing .. Remove me and put something else up that's more modern. At least that's what I heard. So we removed it and my husband put this piece of luan board up to cover up the damaged wall. 

       Looking at it I said to myself ... Let's try those peel and stick metal tiles! Since trying to actually put regular tile seems a bit scary and expensive ... I thankfully talked my husband into trying it. Yay! I'm glad it's a small space... Besides the fact that it's cheaper, it's also less scary to do on my own. 

     After measuring the space and because we are planning on putting up a microwave back up above the oven we decided on 4 packages of these tiles.

    Being a visual learner, I looked up a how to video on YouTube ... And thank God they had one! I watched it a couple times and feel pretty good about it. There is a couple ways you can put these up. I choose to use "method one" so we bought a quart of an oil base primer to paint the area first ... As the method one suggests. Just remember when you buy oil based paint or primer you MUST get turpentine to clean up the brushes.... Or messes. Lol.. You know that's going happen..

     I painted the luan board and at the same time used the same primer to paint the brick backsplash. Please remember that even if the oil prime says low Oder, open up all the windows, my kitchen windows were open and I still felt like my nose and throat was burning. I would actually hold my breath while painting then go to the window to get some air. I'm sure that they want to use oil primer cause it will stick and cover anything on the wall really well. 

  The next step is dry fitting the tiles. My dad and I laid them out just to see how the tiles would fit on the wall. That being said because of the area we were covering we had to adjust to make it easier for us to cut and fit them correctly. There is directions for cutting them, so I would make sure you follow them closely... And make sure you also have sand paper to file the edges of a cute. 

 

 

Here is a closer look: 

 Also, I had to make sure I was placing them bottom up... I would peel the bottom portion first and then place the tile.. Pushing down tightly then once placed I would pull the rest of the back off and press it firmly. Even though we did a small portion it does take time and it took us a couple hours. I think the most time consuming part was cutting and sanding... Plus double checking to make sure it was correct...lol.

 It's really coming together! Now all we have to do is go buy the over the stove microwave and it will look great! Yay! Thanks for your help dad!

 Thanks for checking my blog out and I hope that this gave you some idea of how the peel and stick tile looks and works. Enjoy! 

So what do you think? 

 -Jennifer 

Painting the Brick backsplash in the kitchen! Yay!

Redoing a kitchen is just so time consuming! And very expensive.... Plus it's in your face Iike ever day saying, please help me! I need a face lift! Make me beautiful! I'm like.. I hear you kitchen.. I want to help! But on a budget...

So here is the lovely fake brick backsplash... Isn't  it just ...ugly?.. Lol. After brightening the cabinets with the Linen color we decided to lighten up the 70's fake brick with the the dark mortar. Here is an up close picture:

 

If we had it in our budget I would of loved a beautiful glass subway tile or maybe more metal tiles... But having to keep our cost low I thought, "You know this fake brick.. If painted with high gloss paint... Could look like glass tile." Well, sort of. First thing I did was look up how to paint brick on Pinterest ... Like everyone else in the world.. Then I went to my local paint supplie store and asked some questions. This is what I learned: 1. Cleaning the brick really good is a must... Especially in between inside the mortar. 2. Use a oil based primer first so the paint will stick. Just open up all your windows cause it really, really stinks..even the no odder one. 3. Use a crappy cheap brush on the mortar... Because it's ruff it will destroy the brush. 4. You can use small smooth roller on the actual brick area... But you should only do and area at a time so that you paint the mortar and before that dries you roll the paint on the brick. 5. Repeat as many times as needed! Until you get the look you want.... Oh and if you want an easy cleaning then, paint should be high gloss.

I cleaned the brick with an old rag and some hot soap and water.  After it dried I used Zinnger oil based primer tinted in the color I need... Here it is:

I

When that dried I painted with my chosen linen color...yes like my cabinets... Until I got the finish like I wanted like this:

Here is what it looks like all together in my kitchen....

 So much better! Don't you think so?? The cost of this project was really just the quart paint :$11 and the paint $10.. We already had the tape so we were good to go! 

Thanks for reading! And please subscribe! ;) 

The kitchen cabinets- Rust-o-luem kit

   My house is big... And it's dated... And I'm poor. No I'm not "poor" but with two little kids and trying to recover financially from buying this nice large home, well we have to take our time "updating". Unlike the crazy we just bought a house and now we are going to renovate stuff shows... This is the real world. Which posses the question, are those shows for real? I really could (if I didn't have children) sit and watch home improvement shows all day... While getting a pedi and drinking a large cup of my favorite coffee without someone spilling it. Wouldn't that be lovely? 

    

 Well, back to reality! We have very dark cabinets, very dark, and the kitchen is in the corner of the room... Which is a living room, dining room, and kitchen space. That makes it look dark and small, which, it really isn't. Knowing that we can't gut the kitchen, and the cabinets are in good shape we opted for just painting them. Eventually we want to put new floors in, appliances, backsplash, and new lighting... But those other thing will have to wait.

    

  The first thing we did is look up the best way to paint the cabinets. There are different way to do it... Some looked harder than others.. But what we ended up doing was the rust-o-leum cabinet transformations in linen:

We decided to not do the glaze.

     It has a video u can watch to get you started (we watched it) and it looks very easy. The difficulty of the kit isn't "hard" it's just time consuming and it took us about a week to do. On the home improvement show we watched it took them two days... Of course they didn't have kids. We did have to do 4 coats to really cover the dark brown of the cabinets. Which is probably another reason it took us longer. 

      First thing we had to do is draw out a diagram of our kitchen, numbering every door and then sticking that number to the cabinet door with painters tape. This is important, if you don't you won't remember what door goes where. Next, we had to really clean each door, even though we just did that when we moved in.. We did it again, and I couldn't believe how dirty they were! We removed the hardware and because we decided to put different handles on we had to fill one of the holes. Then we scrubed them with the solution they provided and let them dry. There is a lot of drying periods. We set up a station in our garage to paint them and the kit suggests a couple different ways to set it up. My husband drilled screws in this large piece of old wood we had... Almost like a large table. Then we painted, let it dry, painted, let it dry, painted, let it dry, and so on... The kit suggests two coats, but we did 4. After the second one we could still see the dark wood grain... Third one, still could see it. So I was thankful that we bought two kits. Although one did three coats on everything.  The last part was to    put the protectant  on and it gave everything a nice glossy finish. 

      

        Now the best part... Putting the new handles on (we got these at a local cabinet shop...which ended up being cheaper then the big box hardware store in town) and placing the cabinet doors back on! Yay! One thing we wanted to make sure of was that everything was good and dry before we did... If not the doors would stick and make marks... Which would ruin all the hard work we put into them. I'm so glad we put numbers on them or we would of taken FOREVER to put back up. It's amazing how it's difficult to remember which door goes where and which is the top or bottom. Lol... You should of seen us even though we had everything mark..lol... I think we still put a couple on upside down. We were so tired, but it looked great if you ask me :) ... My husband.. Isn't much of a DYI'er kept saying how "terrible" everything was until the very end when it was completely finished then he commented how much better looked. Ha! I thought... See! Here is the finish project :) 

next we are painting the backsplash brick white and then putting those peel and stick metal tiles up behind the stove. Don't worry.. I'll write you about those too! 

     Thanks for reading my blog!  I hope it made you smile and maybe inspired you a little :) 

Till next time! Please subscribe!

-Jennifer