I am all for DIY. Really, I am. But when it comes down to our new home, I try to squash most of the DIY projects before they can even start. For the most part. Anything involving cutting into walls and wiring just makes me sick to my stomach. I decided early on that when we install our black splash we would be calling someone in to help out. Hands down, I didn’t want to take that on as a project.
The back splash ended up getting cut off our upgrade list early on in the purchasing process. We really couldn’t justify adding the 2000+ price tag to our mortgage. We didn’t want to be paying for it over a period of 20 years.. it just didn’t make any sense.
We did our homework.
We took several trips to lowes and homedepot and by fluke ended up focusing in on this particular tile at Cosco. Believe it or not, it was a pretty amazing deal. It was at the right price point, about two thirds less than the other home stores!
So we jumped at it, brought it home and stored it until we moved into the house.
I didn’t feel that we could confidently and effectively pull off the DIY on this one. Not yet anyways. For starters neither of us had laid tile before and if we had, it probably wasn't done properly. Secondly, I knew that if we did this job ourselves the risk would be very high that we would have really fucked it up and had to hire a pro to fix our problem. I decided the argument wasn't worth the headache and just hired someone to come in and do it for us. Besides, if the pro fucks up, it's on his dime, not mine.
I am so glad we hired a guy.
Low and behold, even before the install began, the contractor was having issues with the glass pieces splitting and cracking.. I commend him on sticking through and doing such a beautiful job. I think I would have thrown in the towel after a few messy cuts.
There are still a few cosmetic things we'd like to take care of, but we aren't ready to rush into buying new electrical caps and such. Overall, this back splash is exactly what we wanted for a fraction of the cost of the builders install; even with labour.
Lesson for today, do your research kids!! You could end up saving a ton of money down the line!
