Spotlight: Painting a Back Splash

This last weekend we installed rain gutters.  Came out great, there were no ups, no downs, it was pretty straight forward & unexciting.  Therefore I have nothing terribly interesting to share about that, haha.  So I decided to choose a topic that's way more fun. The Kitchen!  As we move right along with the projects in there, I started really considering tiling our back-splash.  However, the long term plan is to pretty much flip the kitchen and blast a hole in this wall behind the stove to open up a bar space to the living room:

DIY Painting Cabinets

See - behind that wall is the living room, and if it were open with a glass floating cabinet... it would really join these rooms together. Often times we totally get stuck hanging out in the kitchen, and I'd love to bridge the gap someday.  So what do you do to get a non-permanent back-splash in the mean time? You paint it!

One of my favorite blogs, Sawdust & Embryos, have shared some amazing painted back-splashes, they are so inspiring.  It's been on my to-do list forever, and once our friends Danielle & Patrick painted theirs I was able to see the results in person. And? I LOVE it. All systems go...

While I have no ideas what colors to go with yet (bright & crazy? Or keep it neutral...?) I can at least start gathering my supplies, and convincing Ralph that this needs to be on top of the to-do list.  To learn how to paint your own back-splash (or anywhere else you want a tile look) head over to Sawdust & Embryos for a fantastic tutorial. Definitely something you can do.

Here's a sneak peak:

How To: Paint your Back Splash

Can you believe that is PAINTED? Looks so awesome..professional & clean. The colors totally speak to our kitchen too, notice that? What a perfect example. I'm leaning towards this same thin, long tile, and I think I'll have to contain my excitement for bright colors and stick to neutrals. Maybe a few teals here and there.. We have plenty of fun accessories to soothe my color cravings... heh.

What do you think, will you try to paint a back-splash in your home? Special thanks to Beth & Nick of Sawdust & Embryos for the great tutorial! Wish us luck...

Oh by the way- anyone nearby want a hutch?

-Jesse

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Gold Table For Airbnb

Well there she is.  Lately I've been working on a no-longer-secret project, this gold tiled table.  I was approached by the people of makeably, who had a client, who had their own client, that needed a Gold tiled table.  Top, Sides, legs... all of it - gold. They asked if it could be done, and the collaborating began.  So yesterday when makeably.com did their article on it, I was surprised to see that the table was actually for the offices of airbnb.com!  You can read more about it on Makeably.com, or click here.  But the jist of it is that airbnb wanted to celebrate their success by decorating their new office in the themes of some of their popular apartment rentals. This table, was apparently in someones apartment in Berlin. Neat! Some close ups:

This was not the easiest table in the world, but it also wasn't the hardest. I learned a lot, had a lot of fun, and was really happy how it all came together.  Finding gold tile was the hardest thing in the world, every company I talked to said "no one ever asks for gold, so we stopped carrying it years ago".  Special thanks to Opus Mosaics for really pulling through for me here! 

The company I was working with also asked if I could tile up a table they would send me, which is this:

 Yes, it's missing it's legs! Haha. They will be attaching those later on.

Special thanks to Jessica over at Modwalls, she really helped me out! See, in order to get a custom blend of colors, you usually need to order at least 20 sq. feet.  Well, I clearly only needed about... two square feet? So she lent me the tray, and I hand placed the color tiles one by one.  It's a multi-step process but worked out well. Check out Modwalls when you can, they are a local company (Aptos!) but ship all over the place.  The custom tile blender is awesome!

So that's done.  Dropped them off yesterday and swung by IKEA on the way home.. it was a Tuesday so it was EMPTY. Best time to go EVER.

Thanks for checking in, have a good one!

-Jesse

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Tile Entryway Project: Part 2 of 2

We did it! For a minute there it looked like this project may have to extend into the weekdays, but it all came together and I'm so glad we didn't have to do any after-work grouting nights this week! Let me fill you in on all the details, here's the Tile Entryway Project: Part 1 if you missed it.

We are pretty proud of ourselves here... only a few snags along the way. This tile was pretty easy to work with, and remember I was worried that the online pictures from Home Depot looked like they didn't use grout? I'm happy to report they do use grout, just a color that is almost the same as the tile -

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Tile Entryway Project: Part 1 of 2

So we are completely in the new house. No more back and forth, no more boxes up and down stairs, and especially... no more fast food! Don't get me wrong, fast food is delicious, but when you are so low on time that you are eating it almost (ok, every...) meal? That can do a real number on a body.  But we're getting settled, getting used to the place, and jumping into the projects.  This weekend calls for rain (of course!) so we've decided to tackle a project that one of the cats moved to the top of the to-do list. Meet, Tyler:

Aka T-Bop & T-Bop Shakur, respectively.  Oh, Tyler - look what you've done! Cats have a way of sending you a message, in this case it was let. me. out. Regardless of the 30 degree weather, this spoiled brat wants in and out priveleges, exactly when he wants them.  This does not agree with our carpet,

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