KITCHEN MAKEOVER
Michael Holigan: We've got a kitchen makeover that looks like it came out of the pages of a design magazine. Best of all, you could do it yourself using a few affordable materials and a lot of imagination. Our makeover begins with a fresh coat of paint on the kitchen cabinets and a sophisticated backsplash created from broken tile. MJ Design expert, Heather Mason, shows us how we're going to apply the tile directly over the existing backsplash. First, we sand the laminate to ensure the tile will adhere to its surface. It's a good idea to take a wet rag and wipe off after you're done sanding, just to make sure you get all the dust particles out of there. You don't want that in your mastic or else it's not going to get a good application. Heather, how many different colors are we going to work with here?
Heather Mason: We're gonna use five different colors. We've got black for our main accent color and then we've got these two bone colors to coordinate with your countertop and your sink and we've got white, just to pull out some light and then the taupe to pull out some color from the floor.
MH: This one's even textured. It doesn't hurt to use textured tile?
HM: Little texture is nice.
MH: Okay. Where should we break it? Up here or...?
HM: No, let's break it down here on the rug and we'll put it in these freezer bags. They're a little bit stronger than normal size bags.
MH: What size do you want the pieces to be?
HM: We want to do sort of a medium size piece. There's going to be mostly black, so they can be a little larger and then the accent pieces in between the black can be a variety of sizes. Now we're going to hit it on the backside.
MH: Okay.
HM: And that's so we don't mar up the front side of the tile.
MH: Alright.
HM: And then just going to go for it.
MH: Next, we'll organize the broken tile according to color and size.
HM: Well, I've taken all the pieces and we've separated them into pieces with natural edges, some medium size and then some small filler pieces and this makes the project go a lot quicker.
MH: Okay.
HM: And we start at the top and the sides with all your natural edges so you have a better line.
MH: So we need our flat edge.
HM: Right. So we want to grab some flat edges. Try to stay away from the ones with corners since we're starting at the top part.
MH: Okay, and why are we starting with black?
HM: Because this is our main color and we're going to fill in with every once in a while one of these other colors.
MH: We spread mastic over the existing laminate. It's important to work in a small area, approximately 12 inches by 12 inches, so the mastic doesn't dry out before you cover it with tile. If it does dry out, you can scrape it off and apply a fresh batch. Some of the pieces are actually touching. Is that okay?
HM: Yeah. That's great. Just kind of angle them around. Fit them in there. We're about ready for a color in there and we could probably go with a...well, we've used that one so let's maybe go with a bone. Try one of those. Okay, let's try a different one. That'll be fine.
MH: You know, this would have gone a lot faster if we hadn't smashed all these tiles. Just put them up there.
HM: Probably would have, but not as effective.
MH: Although applying the tile is easy, it does take time and patience. What do you do if the phone rings and you've got some mastic up and you've got to go answer the....
HM: Well, you just take a wet, just real damp paper towel. It doesn't have to be very wet at all. You can grab some sort of tape like we've put up here just in case, and you can just tape it up there and then just set it up against that mastic so that it just keeps it moist enough so until you come back.
MH: You don't have to scrape it off or do it over again that way.
HM: No, we can just go ahead and pull the paper towel off and start right again.
MH: That works out great.
HM: Yeah.
MH: As far as space in these pieces is there any art to it? I mean, how far apart should we really be doing these?
HM: There's not really an art to it, but you do want to pay close attention to detail. You don't want them too far apart, but you don't want them too close together. Some of them can touch, but you need enough space for your grout to go in. You need to watch where your colors are going so that they're not too close together. You don't want two whites right next to each other, at least for this pattern. And you don't want them all going the same angle. So keep them just like a mosaic.
MH: Okay. The moisture from the sink and from boiling pots and pans won't bother the mastic once we're done?
HM: Well, once we get done with all of the tiling and using the mastic we're going to grout it and then you can actually seal your grout if you want to make it even more waterproof.
MH: Grouting is definitely messy, so make sure you place protective covering over your countertops. How come we're using a colored grout?
HM: Well, there's a lot of fun choices of grout colors nowadays and so we're using black to accent with the black background that we've used.
MH: Okay. Since I really didn't use a tight measurement on that, how much water do we add?
HM: We're going to use just enough water to make it the consistency of cooked oatmeal. And we're going to add water slowly and stir it as we go.
MH: Make sure grout doesn't go down in your sink because it will dry like concrete and cause serious plumbing problems. After the grout is the right consistency it must set up for 10 minutes. Then we apply the grout by hand.
HM: Well, we're gonna just scoop up a big ball of grout and we're gonna take it and we're gonna just press it in real good and you're gonna move it back and forth.
MH: After the grout has been thoroughly worked in, Heather scrapes off the excess. Now the grout must dry for at least 12 hours. Heather, now that the grout's dry, what do we do?
HM: Well, we've got a bucket of water and some sponges and we're gonna take the sponges and go over the tiles lightly and pull off some of that excess grout.
MH: Okay, and use a bucket so we don't let any grout go down the drains?
HM: Right. Remember we've got textured tiles in here so you try to need to get in there and get the grout off those.
MH: It will take several spongings with clean water to remove all the grout residue. Later we'll use a dry cloth to polish our backsplash to an elegant glean. While we've used black, ivory and taupe colored tiles in our backsplash, you can use any colors.
Episode 56 1997 - 98 Season
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