As with most things in my life, I always seem to need to be unique. I don't do average, normal, popular, common or anything else that everyone else is doing when it comes to making my home appealing for me. I look for ways to use unusual products or ideas and incorporate things that make me happy. I had looked at hundreds of backsplashes to decide what texture and visual I was going for. I had settled on glass for it's personal appeal and color variety. There are too many objects and possibilities to list everything you could use for this most personal of projects. I knew I wanted rich color, brilliant shine and unique shapes for this. I checked out sea glass first but everything available was thin and seriously rough textured. It wasn't what I had in mind. I spend too much time perusing the commercial options online and locally but didn't see anything that caught my eye. I was sitting at my computer multitasking (that's what I call work mixed with facebook and shopping) when I happened to think about the different forms glass comes in. I was thinking about those large, smooth, flat pebbles you can buy at the craft store to use in plantscaping and candle jars. That led me to think about glass stones. I wondered if anyone local carried the larger ones. Sure enough, Michaels does! So off I went to dream in color at my local store. Oh the blues, the greens, the reds, the purples...good thing I knew that I wanted to stay in the ocean theme for the sake of my fish shaped sink. What ever material you choose, here's a sweet way to lay it all out and get it into place painlessly. Home Depot carried fiberglass mesh in a 6" wide roll. It's something like 75' long but only costs a few dollars so it doesn't matter if you never use it all. It's slightly self-adhesive but you will need to use additional spray adhesive or craft glue to get things to stick well enough to be able to lift it up and put it in place on your wall space. This worked out so well for me considering that I had 5 shades of glass in various sizes and I wanted to lay it out perfectly before I made a mess with mastic.
At this point, I got really nervous. It was just so...busy. I got over my panic attack and forged ahead. Sometimes you just gotta shove that pill down your throat to get where you want to be. If nothing else, it would be totally unique. I was super nervous about the chocolate grout but I had to have that continuity in design or the backsplash wouldn't work with the marble tile. I put all that behind me once I started grouting.I did have the foresight to tape off everything else before I started.
I let this grout set up for almost two hours because it was really thick and needed that extra set up time. Striking it was like dipping a toddler in melted chocolate and having to clean her off with only spit and tissues and without the aid of a shower or bath tub (or lake or ocean or rain). I am not kidding at all here. It took me an hour for the first pass. I let it set for another hour and then went back at it for another hour. I finally finished it up by cleaning off each individual glass stone, carving back and smoothing the grout until I was pleased with the look.
This came out so genuinely lovely. I don't know why I am always so surprised that I actually like the finished project but I stood and stared at this for hours. I kept going back to the bathroom and just staring. Just so so beautiful. It's actually better than I had imagined.
My original plan was to box in the tile edge with oak and stain it really dark, same as the vanity. I then considered using an edge tile but was too limited by the small amount of space between the top of the tile and where the drawers needed to fit back in. I also wanted to keep this part low key considering that I'd gone all royal on the backsplash. A final rundown on the whole vanity project,not including the rest of the room: I made a drawer for the center dummy panel because it was so wide and so much wasted space. It ended up being more than big enough for what little makeup and facial crap I keep. I am currently building slide out bins for all the stuff that ends up under the sink. I have the mirror all framed with colonial trim and I'll cover that in my next installment.
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