Tiling Your Cabinet...

One of my Pinterest boards is titled 'Neat Ideas I'll Never Attempt' and that is exactly where I filed this ingenious idea from Apartment Therapy thinking it was clever but not something we needed, until I started this blog. It's a great idea for both kitchen and bathroom cabinets as we've all experienced some 'goo' stuck to the bottom of the cabinet and who doesn't like adding some ease to their cleaning routine!

BeforeAfter

You'll want to get a few supplies ready:

• Peel & Stick tiles - measure before hand to know how many you need 
• Tape Measure
• Scissors and Exacto Knife
• Ruler or Level - for straight edge

Step 1: Start by cleaning out the cupboard and giving it a good wipe down with an all purpose cleaner. You'll  need to wait for it to be completely dry before you can start laying down the tiles, they will not adhere to a damp cabinet.

Step 2: Measure your cabinet, you want to start at the front, marking the center of the cabinet, as well as the center of a tile, I thought about just throwing them in and laying them down but I knew Mike Holmes would not have agreed with that.

Once you have found the center, peel the backing off the tile, line up the marks and secure it to the cabinet.

Looking closely you can see the mark on the tile aligned with the mark on cabinet.

From here I added the tiles to the left and right, they were a no-brainer as they didn't require any cuts or marking, just had to but them up to the center tile.

Step 3: It was now time to cut the back tiles, my cabinet was not 24" deep - which would've allowed me to just use a second full row of tiles - but rather I had to cut down the back row  to 10 3/4" - I cut four tiles to this dimension and set them to the side.

Step 4: My water lines come up through the the floor of the cabinet - this may vary and yours may come out of the wall, which wouldn't require a notch-out. I lined up the back tile with the one in front and marked the width of the lines and how far they came out from the wall then transferred this onto the tile backing so I didn't have large marker lines on the front - you can do either as it's only inside of a cabinet and no one would actually see it.

Just as the first row, the tiles to the immediate right and left went down without any further cuts and it was time for finishing the edges. 

Step 6: You will want to measure the opening on the sides separately - if you've done everything perfect they should be the same, but mistakes happen and that's OK (mine was 1/8" off on one side). I needed to cut the right side down to get a 2 1/2" strip for the left and a 2 1/8" strip for the right, I measured in from opposite sides of the tile to ensure that it would look like a full tile on either side and not break the pattern. 

My 'straight' edge was knocked by an absurdly large cat, but corrected when I cut.

Repeat this process for the back row and voila, completed project! You'll notice the water line to the dishwasher was hanging down in my before picture, I found a small hook/screw and used it to hang it off the floor, allowing me more storage space.

Finished project! 

In total this project cost me $3.50 (tiles at 3/$1 at Dollarama) and took maybe 30 minutes. I think it was definitely worth the money and a good use of my time and I will be continuing into the bathrooms today! 

It also allowed me to clean out the cupboards of what REALLY didn't need to be in there; I'm the worst for purchasing a shampoo/conditioner set, using half of it only to be enticed by the next great commercial - I think I had 6 sets in the Main Bath cabinet, along with an array of random bath goodies that have come as stocking stuffers and freebies over the years. My friend Whitney gladly took all the shampoos/conditioners and I sold all the other goodies (not opened of course) to a lady on a local Facebook Swap N' Shop group - to which I'm also horribly addicted.

I'm currently searching for a better organization solution for my cabinets -  if you have any thoughts let me know! 

Grade: A+