As we start to plan and work on our kitchen renovation the amount that will need to go into this project is sinking in.  (<– Not a kitchen pun.)  It will be a lot of work: building new cabinets, refinishing our current ones, tiling the backsplash, making expensive decor decisions left and right.  Fortunately, I can reassure myself that I know how to do all of this stuff already.

… except for tiling.

I’ve never tiled a thing in my life and it seems like the best place to start is NOT the highly visible and probably very expensive feature backsplash in our kitchen renovation.  I wanted to start smaller and simpler, so I decided to do a different project with tile to give me some experience before I jump into doing it on a permanent fixture.

An easy target was this bench:

It may not look like much, but it is a meaningful piece to me.  It was given to me by my uncle Jeep when I was a little kid.  He made it for me from a furniture kit from a company that sold assemble-yourself historic pieces.

When I moved into my first apartment after college I took it with me and it formed the basis of a “mini entryway,” sitting by the door with shoes under it and mail on top.  However, it got pretty beat up over all these years, and so when I moved into this house  and started investing in long-term furniture it pretty quickly ended up in the basement.  I didn’t have a spot for it, but I also didn’t want to get rid of it given its sentimental value and figured I would make it over one day.

And, unlike many “basement treasures,” its day actually arrived!

I started by taking off the linoleum-esque top…

… and then giving it a really good cleaning and sanding.  It was in pretty bad shape, with a lot of bumps and scratches over the years.  The nails had also rusted into the wood a bit and were really visible.

Given all this damage I decided to go with a very dark stain to refresh it.  I usually like a middle-tone wood stain like Minwax Early American but I went with Dark Walnut on this one.

It already looked so much better all stained and cleaned!

Then it was on to the fun/terrifying part: tiling!  What follows is NOT a tutorial since I was just learning myself, but I will show a few steps along the way.

I picked out a nice, mostly white penny tile from the aisle of my local Home Depot and took this opportunity to invest in a few tiling tools.  Learning from Sage’s tiling experience, I picked out matching (both white) thinset and grout.  I figured the all white look would be nice and bright against the dark wood stain.

A big benefit of using such small tiles was that I didn’t need to cut them, leaving that portion of the tile experimentation for another day 🙂

I experienced “a lot of good learning” mixing and spreading my thinset, but eventually got it on relatively neatly.  The ridges show that I achieved the right consistency!

However, it wasn’t as even as I thought it was, which is a good lesson for next time.  You can see the difference in how much seeped through between the tiles, and I had to wipe some back to leave room for grout.

After letting it dry overnight, I taped off the edges before grouting to protect the wood.  Then I just glopped it on and wiped it off.  Grouting is fun!

And the tape worked really well to get a clean, crisp grout line.

By far the hardest step, however, was getting the grout-haze off.  Maybe I didn’t sponge enough before it dried?  Was I supposed to use some special “grout haze chemical”? Has anyone else had this problem?

Still, I am thrilled with how it came out in the end!

With the dark stain and a glossy poly, the wood now looks refreshed and deep.  A few marks and rust stains are still a little visible, but now the small variations give depth and character rather than make it look worn down.

I’m also proud of how the tiling came out.  I’m not sure penny tile is the easiest for a first try grouting, but I think I got it decently even!

It feels good to have given this piece some attention and have this meaningful gift in shape to use and pass along through the family.  It was already plenty sturdy and now it is fixed up to look good for the long-term!

I don’t have a specific spot for it now.  It would make a great plant stand but our windows are too high (at least until we makeover the sun room).  It’s really a kids bench, so I’ll be keeping it for that use… someday!  And for now the tiling lessons will serve me well when the time comes to tile the kitchen backsplash.