Marble Tile Back Splash

Thanks to a very generous donation, we have a couple of boxes of real marble tiles. That means we have the opportunity to install a marble tile back splash. What better place to make use of this opportunity, than in the north container’s coffee station?

The marble tiles we received are absolutely beautiful to look at. They were left-overs after another project and were just taking up space and collecting dust in our donor’s home. So, of course, we were very happy to take over these tiles. We spent several months admiring them while we decided what to do with them. We have enough to do a back splash or two and will probably look at using the majority of them in our kitchen. However, we also decided to use them in the north container. The greys in the marble were just perfect for this coffee station space.

The purpose of the coffee station is a small space for Cindy to make herself tea and coffee and cereal in the morning. Nothing big or fancy is required. Kevin designed a compact space. Once Cindy approved it, we purchased the mealmine boards so that the cupboards could be fitted. But, as I am sure you can guess, we hit a snag.

The Problem

The coffee station is built right over a huge dent in the side of the container. Most of the other dents Kevin panel-beat out of the shipping containers using a sledge hammer. This made a terrible noise but was quite effective. Somehow, we missed this dent and when we finally realized it was there and just how bad it was, it was too late to do much about it.

The good news is that we mostly managed to hide the dent behind the coffee station cupboards, but it did cause us a bit of an issue. The interior cladding where we would install the back splash had a big step in it where two boards joined near the dented area.

The Solution

Kevin’s solution in the end, was pretty simple. He cut out a template out of fibre cement board to the exact dimensions required for the splash back. He then took the template and tiled it with the marble tiles, using a flexible tile adhesive. From there, it was easy to take the full board, with tiles attached, and glue it onto the wall with paintable silicon.

To be honest, now that it is up, you’d never guess that this is how that marble tile back splash was completed.

As you can see in the photos, the coffee station is located in a corner. The other side was much easier to tile as this wall, is in fact, the back of a cupboard. Therefore, it was perfectly straight. For this side, Kevin was able to use the flexible tile adhesive to stick the tiles directly to the back of the cupboard.

Marble tile Back Splash

If you recall a previous article we wrote on tiling with marble, this is not the end of the tile installation. Once the grout is in and dry, we will still need to seal the tiles, using a marble sealer, to protect the tiles from soaking up oil and other food preparation liquids.

We are very pleased with the marble tile back splash installation. It looks great next to the pink beech solid wood top. What a perfect little space for preparing a steaming mug of coffee on a cold wintry morning.