Our 30 Minute Back Splash

Yes, you did read that right. The back splash or the lack of one has been driving me a little nuts. When Mike was redoing the cabinets we decided to rip out the faux stainless steel back splash that the previous owners had.

It had been glued or epoxied to the wall, and with it gone all that was left was some badly torn up dry wall.

We've been living with it like that for about 2 months now, and everyday it makes me a little crazy, so today while I was at home depot I decided to do something about it.

This isn't going to be our permanent back splash, but is certainly much better than trashed dry wall for the next couple of months.
Here's what I did:
I gathered my supplies-

I bought the paintable wallpaper in a pressed tin ceiling pattern at Home Depot for about $13. I had the thumb tacks, scissors and the razor already.

I started by unrolling a little bit more than what I needed and cutting the piece. Then I held it up as close as possible and made a more accurate cut. Because our cabinets are sandwiched between a wall and the refrigerator my job wasn't all that difficult. I cut as straight of a line as I could on the wall side (I used a scissor, and followed the pattern) I let the paper go behind the refrigerator about 5 or 6 inches and I cut that edge the same way.

I was able to pull the right countertop away from the wall a little because it isn't fastened to the cabinet. The paper comes prepasted, but I wanted to do a test run first with less permanency, so I just used some thumb tacks I had in the junk drawer. I didn't use very many, the photo below shows all the spots I used them.

Once I got it all tacked up and looking good and smooth I used the razor knife to cut small X's over the outlets, and then I used the scissors to cut them out the rest of the way.

 

I hung the outlet covers back up, and put everything back on the counter where it belongs. I am so happy with the outcome that we are thinking about leaving it that way for quite a while.

for $13 it can't be beat. Now if only I could decide what color to paint it.