Backsplash

I really, really, really wanted something fabulous for my backslash, but I had so much of it, that it was going to cost me an arm and a leg...or two. Our tile budget, given to us by our builder was $2 per square foot. After driving all over town for 3 days looking for travertine tile for $2 a square foot, I finally called our builder and said "look, I don't know where you get it, I can't find it anywhere,  but I want a  Travertine back splash, and I want it for $2 a square foot, just like in the model home, and just like in our rental house". He said, okay, no problem, I'll take care of it. Seriously? just like that? All I had to do was ask for travertine tile for $2 a square foot and he got it...and my question is, if he could give it to me for $2 a square foot to begin with, why did I spent 3 days and a tank and a half of gas and blow up two tires on the interstate, running all over town trying to find something fabulous for my backsplash that I could afford on a measly $2 per square foot budget?

So I thought all Travertine might be kinda boring, so I wanted to do something different behind my cook top and under the range hood. Something dramatic, but relatively inexpensive...for a back splash. So, I took my two $50 gift cards given to us by our realtor and one we had leftover from Christmas and bought the bronze trim tile above and the stone 12x12 mosaic. All of it was right at $100 with my military discount. I laid it out on a towel (after first laying it all out on the Lowe's floor for an hour or more) and tried to visualize it behind my stove top.

The 12x12 stone mosaic sheet was $10 bucks alone, and as bad as I'd love to have it all over my back splash, deep down, I know, that "less is more", so I bought one square of it along with one bronze tile to replace the 4 center most tiles in the 12x12 tile. The small braid would go around the 12x12 mosaic. Around the braid would be filled with Travertine, then around that would go the other bronze trim. I hoped it would look OK, I had no idea what it would look like, I hoped close to what it did on the floor.

Here is the finished product, and I think it's perfect. It's just enough.

The travertine still has to be sealed, and the stone mosaic will be treated and shined up a bit to enhance it, so it will be brighter when it's completely done, but this morning I was definitely doing a happy dance in the kitchen. Especially when I saw that this was in and WORKING!

The oven and cook top are on back order, along with the dishwasher...I have no idea why. But with the microwave, we can work, and have TV dinners for lunch and the air conditioning was on too! woo hoo!

So, a couple of people have said that they like the way the house is coming together, that they can tell that I've been "building" it and designing it in my head for years, and I haven't really thought about it, until I was cleaning out our files from the file cabinet the other day. I found a file that was marked "Dream House". Just for giggles, I thumbed through it. Most of the stuff went in the trash, There were ideas in there of things that I've been collecting since cows and country blue were in style...long, long ago. What did catch my eye, was a picture I'd torn out of a magazine of a kitchen. The date on the paper was April 2006....4 years ago, right after we moved to Shreveport. This was the picture:

I don't even remember tearing this out, but I still love it. Below is a picture of the kitchen design that came out of my head 4 yrs later...my kitchen almost finished...isn't that weird how similar they are?

Freaky, huh?