the artsy part of the kitchen remodel question..
I've been lurking forever, and have gotten lots of good information from you all...thanks! I'm in the middle of the long planned kitchen remodel. Cabinets are all ripped out, the concrete floor has been polished. I have the electrician, plumber and cabinet, appliance, and granite installers scheduled over the next couple of weeks. I am now able to start planning the more creative and decorative parts of the plan, and I need some advice. I have a medium green-gray for the walls, light birch cabinets, green gray granite, and the light gray floor. I have no overhead cabinets. I am planning on a large single glass sheet for the backsplash behind the cooktop, going all the way up to meet the range hood. The rest of the kitchen will have a 1 ft high glass backsplash also, and above that a utensil rail. What I want to do is put either a single 0r double row of 4x4 pale blue clear glass tiles all around, above the rails. However - here's where I want to be creative. I want to do a metal leaf (silver/gold?) design on the underside of some of the tiles (a pear, a fork, spoon etc.) On some of the tiles i want to put a food quote. I think the leaf and/or letters needsto be sealed, but I don't think I can put a sealer over the whole back of the tile - won't that keep the tile from adhering properly to the mastic? I know I need to use a white mastic, and butter the back of each tile. i'm just worried that buttering the back and sticking the tile on will either mess up the design, or cause the tile not to stick. Any advice for my crazy idea? Ellen
Yup ... try a test tile. If you are putting the design on the back of the tile, so that it shows through the glass, I think perhaps the mastic itself will seal the back of the tile. (BTW, true silver leaf will tarnish but gold leaf will not. Of course there are a lot of pseudo-gold and silver leaf products out there ... read the package carefully to see what you are getting. There is nothing wrong with fake gold or silver leaf but they may have different properties from the real thing.) But seriously, if you really really want to do this, then order a couple of tiles and get some gold leaf and mastic and a little backer board or whatever, and see how it comes out. Then you'll know. Also, assuming that you like it, you will need to do two or three just to get the hang of it. So they can be your test tiles. (If you plan it right, maybe you can turn your test tiles into trivets or something for later use.) FWIW, sounds like a beautiful design to me! :) - Ann