Hang Cement Backer Board For A Wall Full Of Tile, step by step
As exhilarating as demolition can be, there is consistently that nagging voice in the back of your head reminding you that you are going to have to replace whatever you are demolishing.
Bummer, right?
Well, we did not let ourselves wallow in that realization too long and dove right into reconstructing the kitchen. In fact, between demoing the tiles and the plywood we in fact snuck out to The Tile Shop (in my sister’s borrowed SUV) to buy cement board so we’d have all of our supplies ready as soon as demo was done.
The cement board (1/4″ thick Permabase Ultrabacker to be exact) was about $10 per 3ft x 5ft sheet after the 10% discount code that they offer everyone (YHL10) and I picked up four of ’em. In fact, I picked up eight of them because of some gross miscalculations on my part but only used four. So once our extra board returns were made it was about $40 spent. We knew we’d be using them along the whole back wall above the stove (that is going to be our focal wall with tile to the ceiling, a big range hood, and open shelves) as well as wherever else our standard 18″ backsplash would go on the other walls of the kitchen. I began with the 18″ backsplash boards first since they were smaller and more manageable. They simply required some careful measuring to ensure that I cut accurately around the window and for the outlet holes.
To make my cuts I used my jigsaw, since it was convenient and I was good at controlling it. I also wore a gas mask (not a paper one, a real deal rubber one with filters) to avoid ingesting any of the nasty dust that flew. Though I am fairly sure I was not using the right blade for that material though. It cut simply fine, but by the end of the job my blade looked like this:
Notice all of the missing teeth in the middle? Cutting literally sanded them off. So yeah… lesson learned. Perhaps I was supposed to use a diamond blade since cement board is so coarse? Either way, I was glad to get ‘er done.
Setting the cut boards in place was fairly straightforward. I was able to balance them along the old plywood under them (they were the same thickness, which was truly handy for a seamless result). Then I simply made sure they were level and drove some screws in all by myself while Sherry kept Clara out of the danger zone (aka: our tore-up-from-the-floor-up kitchen).
So once I was sure that all of my screws were adequately sunk into the cement board (pokey screw heads are bad for flush-laying tile) I continued on my merry way around the room. This was not so bad, in fact! Especially since I dreaded it so much because we did not exactly have a strong time with the same process while rebuilding our first house’s bathroom. Perhaps absence makes the heart grow fonder?
The thing that made my life much easier was the fact that the 5ft tall boards fit simply about perfectly in my 5ft tall wall behind the stove. That meant I did not have to do any cutting on those boards (except for the outlet holes). So the ease of cutting made up for the extra difficulty of maneuvering a bigger, heavier board. Luckily Clara was napping by this point so I was able to enlist Sherry’s assist to hold them in place while I drilled. It certainly made this part of the day go much faster.
Oh, and as for the dangling outlet up by the vent – it’ll eventually be used to hook up our future range hood. Since we are not 100% sure how /where that’ll be hooked up we simply placed it somewhere temporarily that could (hopefully) work . If not, at least the hole will be hidden behind the vent cover we are eventually going to build (and there is some play in the wiring that connects to that junction box so we will be able to move it if we need to).
If you look at the photo above you will see that our future range hood will not be perfectly centered on that wall of tile, but it will be perfectly centered on that back wall of the kitchen (when you include the space next to the cement board over the doorway). So once we add our penny tile to the ceiling and install our open shelves and our built-in range hood, we think the way that we “accessorize” the floating shelves will also assist restore balance. We plan to use them to house everyday dishes that we will use so frequently they do not have a chance to get dusty along with other items that are consistently stored out in the open like vases, some art, a plant or two, etc (more on the whole dust/open shelves thing here).
But simply because cement board was done, did not mean we were done with our walls. After all, we still had this going on above the sink and pantry:
We briefly talked about doing more tile to the ceiling on that wall, but thought that one focal wall with open shelves and a big range hood with tile to the ceiling would be sufficient. So we chose that a regular old wall with a standard 18″ backsplash will better balance the other side of the kitchen which will also have that going on next to the fridge. Oh and we also thought tile over the pantry would simply be especially weird, and that would be the natural stop point for a rectangular effect like the other wall, so we are glad we bailed on that idea.
But the walls of the kitchen are not drywall. Nope, remember they are painted paneling (which we in fact do not mind for the soft texture and coziness it adds once it is painted – we had some in our first home’s den too). So we did the unthinkable…
… we in fact purchased a sheet of paneling. And oy how it pained us. We are fairly sure everyone at the checkout was thinking “welcome to 2011, why the heck are you buying paneling?!” Luckily we had one leftover piece of painted paneling leftover from the doorway opening project that we were able to reuse to the right of the window above where the backsplash will go. So I simply had to buy one sheet at Lowe’s.
So yes, that was a first. Never in my life did I think I’d be BUYING new wood paneling. And thank goodness it’ll get painted any second now (along with that rough looking ceiling), so we did not have to worry about matching color.
Luckily that one 4ft x 8ft piece o’ paneling covered all of the areas that we needed. We had the guy at Lowe’s cut the pieces to size so (a) they’d fit in our Altima and (b) we did not have to do it ourselves. But I did buy a new jigsaw blade while I was there (so I could cut the hole for our microwave outlet).
Oh yeah, and notice our moment of laziness above? Since a small-ish upper cabinet will be covering that section of wall we did not go through the trouble of cutting out that piece of plywood (it would’ve meant moving the pantry, and it will not be seen once we install the cabinet with brought in crown molding around the top anyway). Gotta enjoy one wall-hanging shortcut along the way.
As for the cement board seams, we will be taping them and then using thinset over them to set the tiles, which should hold everything in place for the long haul per The Tile Shop’s recommendation. But wait, let us go back to this picture of that wall head on:
You might be wondering about that oddly placed window (it is not centered on that expanse right now) but once we add the small-ish upper cabinet to the right of the pantry there will be exactly 14″ of wall space between the side of that cabinet and the window trim. There will also be 14″ of wall space between the right side of the window trim and the 12″ floating shelves that will be hanging on the focal wall (they’ll jut out 12″ to house all of our big dishes and stuff, which is pleasant because the window will eventually look perfectly balanced with 14″ of wall space on either side).
Anyways, here is what the kitchen was looking like when we were all done. Still not strong, but certainly better. And not only do we enjoy how the room feels without upper cabinets crowding us, it is also pleasant to start to see what it’ll look like once the tile backsplash is installed. I wish I had taken a wider shot so you could see the paneling on the other side of the room with the 18″ backsplash that will go over there (next to the fridge) since it truly feels pleasant and balanced with one wall of tile and two standard backsplashes on each of the other two side walls.
Oh, and since plenty of folks asked on our last kitchen post – these are both interior walls (that window looks into to our heavily insulated sunroom, not the outdoors) which is why they were not insulated before and why we did not opt to add any insulation during this step of the process. We lived here through last winter (which was colder and snowier than most) and we knew that the sunroom did not get quite cold, so thankfully the kitchen never feels drafty or uninsulated (in our experience, brick ranches are strong about maintaining a comfortable temperature in general since they are so solidly built and are not typically drafty).
As for the timeline, this whole destruction/reconstruction process took us two days (one for demo/buying cement board, one for installing the new walls) so overall it was not that bad. Though I was fairly darn sore by the end of it all. Thankfully Sherry pointed out that our next step was paint touch ups, which are not too bad (ceilings are my least go-to surface to paint, but we do not have much of it to deal with). We are in fact kind of excited to get that done because the room will hopefully look less Frankenstein than it is looking now (mismatched appliances + mismatched cabinetry + mismatched paneling = ca-razy). But still better than the before that we began with:
What about you folks. Have you ever hung cement board or in fact had to (gasp) buy paneling? Any ceiling painting on your agenda?
Pssst- We are over on BabyCenter chatting about the birthday time capsule that we at last completed for Clara to open on her 18th birthday.
Psssst- We have listed our black above-the-range microwave on craigslist if anyone is interested (it is only a year old, works strong, and is still sold by Sears). Here is the link.
