The kitchen is one of the spaces in our little rented abode that I’ve always found a bit tricky to make my mark on. I just couldn’t stop myself from dwelling on the things that I couldn’t change, rather than looking for ways to transform the things that I could. Like our plain old splash back, for example. So, today I’m sharing how you can transform your kitchen on a budget using tile stickers.
Over the last few years I’ve been introduced to an array of amazing hacks to update your kitchen – both budget friendly and renter friendly. From painting tiles and cabinets, to spray painting hardware and using vinyl on counter tops, there’s so much you can do to give your kitchen a gorgeous glow up without spending all of the £££. Our kitchen is pretty stark with its all white cabinets and the original splash back was fine – there was nothing wrong with it as such – it just didn’t have the oomph factor that I wanted, you know? That is, until tile stickers came into my life and blew my little mind.
I decided that I wanted to add tile stickers to my splash back around 18 months ago, and ordered a set off Etsy. But, the problem that I had – one that I stupidly didn’t take into consideration – is that my splash back is a completely flat surface rather than tiles. So, when I tried to place the individual tiles, they just didn’t look right without any grout. And yes I did many a sob but the tiles I bought went to a lovely home in the end so all was not lost.
I searched high and low and just couldn’t seem to find ‘the ones’, until I stumbled across Quadrostyle on one of my many late night shopping scrolls. Not only are all of the designs absolutely gorgeous, but you can buy them as individual tiles or in panels, complete with an added grout effect. YAAAAAAAAS. I ummed and aahed for ages over the designs (could happily fill my flat with every single one), but finally decided on the Astra in Black.
First things first, I made sure the surface was completely clean, giving it a good scrub with sugar soap. When you are adding stickers on top of tiles, there is next to no measuring up needed, but with the panels we need to make sure that the patterns matched up and that we could cut them to size easily. Luckily, it was pretty seamless to do. The only tricky bits were cutting around the cabinets and the section in the middle (pictured above). One thing I will say, is you need to be patient! Joe will confess that patience is not his bag, and he got a teeeeny bit grouchy when getting the air bubbles out and at the slightly fiddly bits. In the end, he cut and I stuck and then he left me to happily stand and push the air bubbles out (a debit card will be your best friend for this!). You’ll also need a stanley knife to cut around any plug sockets or to remove any excess bits.
And voila! All in all it took around an hour I’d say and made an instant impact to the space. I honestly couldn’t love it more! The only thing I’d say is that originally I thought that the tiles would be smaller so that the pattern was on each quarter of the tiles, so when the larger design arrived I was worried they’d look too big. When you click on the splash back version there is no mention of the quarter version, but it’s available to buy here if you’d prefer that look. But I still love them and couldn’t recommend them more!
Before After
So what do you think? Have you ever thought of using tile stickers in your home?
