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