Remember this wall?
The “what-should-I-do-with-this-wall” wall?
It’s got a new look and it completely changes the feel of the entire room. A tall order since it’s the kitchen, dining, office and living room space.
When you have a room that wears so many hats it’s important that they flow but you also don’t want to feel like you are dining in your living room either.
The subway tile helps define the dining and kitchen from the living room.
A couple of years ago the Mr. and I tackled the kitchen backsplash wall ourselves.
Time consuming? Yes.
Doable? yes.
But have to be honest, we had enough going on that we didn’t want to give up a full weekend dedicated to tiling the other wall.
So I decided to hire it out. The Mr. gave me his blessing (no surprise there).
I have worked with some great (and not so great) tile people in the past but unfortunately, my good ones were booked months out.
So I turned to my trusty site for connecting home owners with home professionals…HomeAdvisor.
You enter the type of project you’re looking to complete and it gives you several referrals of people in your area. It’s like the best dating site ever but for home improvement professionals.
I called three professionals and got three bids. Then I went back and read the reviews on them which I find to be the most helpful. People don’t hold back. They tell the good, the bad and the ugly on their experience working with these professionals.
The tiler I chose had REALLY great reviews so I decided to give him a chance.
At one point we had one tiler working on the wall one day then he fell ill and couldn’t make it the next day so a different guy took over. When the original guy returned he noticed one of the tiles was off which threw about 5 rows of tiles off. You would have to really study to the pattern to even notice. Without blinking he ripped all the “off” tiles down and re-tiled it. It’s that kind of attention to detail that I really appreciate.
They matched our existing subway tile wall perfectly so it looks like both walls were done all at one time. (Excuse the light switch).
We’re really pleased with the result and even more pleased that we didn’t have the stress of doing it ourselves. A lot of times we DIY’ers make DIY’ing sound really romantic. One weekend and you have a cool new wall. But you have to weigh the time you spend on a project in terms of a dollar amount. HomeAdvisor has been the key to my sanity on several projects and it’s a free site to use.
If you’re looking to have any kind of home improvement work down you have to give HomeAdvisor a try. Even if you just want to explore their True Cost Guide to get rough estimates of how much your project might cost they are a great resource. And the best part…it’s free!
(After photos by Allison Bills Photography).
*This is a sponsored post written by myself. All thoughts, opinions and experiences are my own.*
Hey there! I’m Michelle; I’m an Passionate DIY’er and in constant pursuit of how to bring beauty to my house full of men (3 boys + 1 hubby). Stick around and see what I’ve got up my hard-working sleaves!
Your home is just so pretty. 🙂
Ditto girl! Thanks Kim!
WOW! That turned out great. Beautiful!!
Thanks Reenie!
Great idea hiring someone in to do it! We’ve been getting our kitchen done and it’s dragged 7 weeks now. Was meant to take 3…tops!! So I’m so envious of your gorgeous finished space x
That sounds like you’re right on track then. Projects always seem to take triple the amount of time, sadly. Thanks Pamela!
Love the look, but, does that tile not go all the way up to the ceiling? if not, why not?
We left about 4 inches at the top. The reason for that is our walls and ceiling are really uneven. Running the tile all the way to the top would have pointed out how obvious it was because the tiles would have been all cut differently.
It looks really nice, I love it. Thank you for the great idea. I have in plan to do the same thing in my basement.
That will look awesome. Thanks Evelyn.
It turned out beautiful… I just had our entire kitchen done in subway tile (looks just like yours) the installers did not seal it. How did you seal your tile? They told me to just put on a clean white rag and wipe it on and then re-wipe to get off the tile…does that sound right? My entire kitchen walls and backsplash are tiled. We also used Home Advisors and were very happy with our results.
Yay for HomeAdvisors! Yep, that’s how it’s done. Thanks Marilyn.
Nice! Love the light above your kitchen sink window. Do you happen to know if that is still available anywhere?
Yep…here it is. Mine is obviously in black though: https://www.schoolhouseelectric.com/lighting/wall-sconce-fixtures/princeton-senior-plug-in-sconce-2-25.html
I love this project and am on the tail end of a sub doing tile on my bathroom floor and bathtub surround. I’ve been a little frustrated and unsure as to what is my responsibility and what is his as far as quality control. When doing the floor, turns out some of the tile was from one dye lot and the other two from a later batch. He set all the tiles with the tiles grouped according to color and size, making it really obvious how different each one was. I noticed after he left for the night. when I showed him the next day, he seemed un phased and said something about how in 30 days my eye would be accustomed to it and would never notice. I asked him to pull them up and at least stagger them around. Which he did, but not very happily. I’m baffled as to how he didnt notice the difference in the tile and why he didnt bring it to my attention while he was laying it- I was home the entire time.
Did I just hire the wrong guy? Should I have been hanging over his shoulder more during the installation? If I think I see a problem, how to I walk the line of being proactive and not straight annoying?
Quality control is really up to you. You would hope that the person you hire does an A+ job but I’ve found that few people really care. They just want to throw the tile in, get paid and get out. You really have to speak up and be proactive letting them know what you want. I try to make sure that I’m ALWAYS at the job when someone is doing work on my homes…otherwise, you never know what you are going to get. If he was experienced he would have opened up all the boxes and laid one tile from each box as he went so to avoid that problem. I’m glad you made him re-lay it.
I used to be really cool to work for. I’d bring donuts and treats to help motivate them. They just walk all over you. Now I’m all business. No treats, clear about what I want and sometimes a witch. I hate to be that way but I also don’t want to be a minnie-mouse I live with a crappy job. Good luck!