New Backsplash - Revealed!!

I realize, now, that it's been over a week since I last posted. I went on that spree where I posted about our trip to California, and was all blogged out! Last week was, honestly, pretty brutal. I felt like I just couldn't catch up on sleep. Over the weekend, I finally found my motivation, and got back to work on the kitchen backsplash. Before we'd left for California, I'd laid as much tile as I could without using a tile (wet) saw. We had a tile snapper, which worked great for basic vertical cuts, but the tiles were so small that they just crumbled when I attempted to use the snapper for horizontal cuts. And everything I've said about marble says that you really need to use a wet saw. I planned to just rent one for a day...

Only we got back, and Gus was like, "Hey, look what I found in the garage!" A wet saw! Because Gus owns five million tools, and vaguely remembered buying that when he first moved in and was tiling the laundry room floor. Anyway, he helped me get it set up, and we were back in business! I finished laying the tiles on Saturday morning. That afternoon, I taped everything off and sprayed the tiles to seal the stone (because marble stains easily, and can even be discolored by grout). I let it sit for almost two days. Sunday night, I caulked around the edges where horizontal and vertical surfaces meet. And yesterday afternoon, I grouted everything! Grouting is by far the worst, messiest step, and it was NOT fun, but look at the end result!!!!

sigh. I really, really love it! I still need to seal everything one more time (to include the grout), but that's easy. I even went through and replaced all the outlets and switches, and repainted that window frame/sill. It looks quite nice, if I do say so myself (and I do!).

Also in the past 48 hours... I signed a girl up for kindergarten next year (!!!), had my annual physical, dragged the kids with me to do my lab work for said physical (which involved a cup and a small restroom and two kids laughing hysterically... yay...), took my car in for a recall issue and some warranty work (no big deal), got children to and from their respective schools, and took Niko to karate. I am TIRED. But have you seen my kitchen??? :)