DIY: Rustic backsplash for under $40.

Last weekend I had a Saturday off. It was cold and rainy so my wife and I decided we'd spend the day working on an inside project. We went out to breakfast then hit the Home Depot afterwards looking for inspiration. We were walking past the tile/flooring section when the back splashes caught our eye. For years we've been threatening to replace the greasey wallpaper behind our oven with a real backsplash so we started looking at the tile designed for that purpose. Not only were they incredibly pricey--but we really saw nothing that caught our eye as being unique and worth it.

 We were leaving the area when a couple vinyl tiles stuck on the corner caught our eye. They were really cool. Vinyl tiles designed to look like the old copper/tin plating they used to put on roofs. The saloons in Jerome all have them. We both agreed it would look really great behind our counter. They were 18 X 18 inch little vinyl tiles that were simply cut with scissors and glued to wall. Easy peasy. We started picking out the patterns we liked and then we saw the price-- $23 a tile! For an 18 inch piece of plastic! I did the math in my head and estimated we'd need about 8 tiles + glue + trim and the total bill would come to almost $200.

We were horrified. $200 for plastic? Are you kidding us?  Real metal wouldn't cost that much, Debi observed. So we headed towards the other part of the store--the lumber yard-- and started looking at different types of metal. We looked at galvanized metal sheets but thought that would be too much. As we were leaving the roofing section, however, the rolls of metal roof flashing caught our Debi's eye. As it turned out, the rolls came in one foot width which was exactly the width between our counter and cabinets. An entire roll of 50 feet cost $40. We'd only need half--but could use the rest for another project. This will work, Debi claimed.

At first I was a little dubious and I wouldn't buy it. We returned home did some more measuring and visualizing and the more I thought about it the more I started to see her genius.We went back to Home Depot and purchased a roll of galvanized metal flashing, a tube of liquid nails, and a dremel attachment for cutting metal.

The first thing we did was roll the flashing out flat in the driveway. Then we shoveled gravel on it and drove over it several time with the truck. Left alone, the metal was too smooth and shiny. It looked like--well flashing. It needed some kind of pattern-- even a rough one-- so we went for the distressed  look. We cut the flashing to size using tin snips, cleaned it up and then brought it inside.

The next step was to carefully measure the electrical outlets and cut openings. We did this using the dremel. It was a lot of fun cutting the thin sheet metal with sparks flying everywhere! Once we had the openings the exact right size, we glued the metal to the wall and secured it temporarily with screws until it dried.

The one problem we faced was the ugly seam where two sheets came together behind the stove. We covered this with a board that Debi painted red to hang her iron skillets. We added another board above it to hang more skillets.

The result was a very unique and easy maintained backsplash for less than $40 and fun weekend project.

What do you think?