"Tin" Kitchen Backsplashes
12 June 2008
“You Say Façade, I Say Fasade”
![clip_image002[3]](http://www.cft411.com/images/KitchenBacksplashes_7BE9/clip_image0023.jpg)
All kitchens have backsplashes—the building codes in any city pretty much assures that—but there is a whole range of backsplashes, ranging from the single row of 6″ high, cheap tile that surrounds our kitchen to the rather more elegant backsplashes featured on this page. From a purely utilitarian point of view, of course, all one really needs is that cheap 6″ tile, but when you do that, you end up with a wall that is splattered with whatever kind of cooking you do. And if you’ve ever had an incident with spaghetti sauce, you know at once that one row of tile does not cut it. Unless you wipe that up the moment it splashes, you have red stains that are never in this world going to come off unless you scrub through the paint and into the drywall. Imagine the fun for those of us who are not adept at drywall repairs!
So, a decorative backsplash has its advantages, just in the amount of work it saves. More than that, though, it helps bring a kitchen to life, and does so at a price most of us are willing to pay. And now, thanks to the miracles of our age, we have choices. No, let me rephrase that, because I’ve been on the Internet for a while. MAN, do we have choices, lots and lots of choices. But I’ll try to keep it down to just two for the moment.
One of the elegant backsplashes from the past, because it has some of the timelessness we spoke of last week, has now made a bit of a comeback. Patterned tin was quite popular at the turn of the Twentieth Century, especially for ceilings, then it fell into disfavor, mainly because of the cost. It is still not used as much for ceilings, unless you have a professional to install it, because of the difficulties of working overhead, but it is becoming increasingly popular for kitchens, especially for those, like myself, who are using more traditional concepts, such as wooden countertops. And that brings us to our choices.
![clip_image004[3]](http://www.cft411.com/images/KitchenBacksplashes_7BE9/clip_image0043.jpg)
At the top of this blog is a sample from from Valley Tin Works in Pennsylvania, who makes patterned tin façades for backsplashes at a price of about $22 per square foot. The installation is said to be fairly easy, but I suspect it is a product that is better suited to an experienced do-it-yourselfer.
On the right we have a similar looking product from ACP Fasade, but there is quite a bit of difference. It is said to provide the look of the traditional tin backsplash façade, but to do so at about half the cost. The secret, of course, is that it’s not tin but thermoplastic. It comes in a large variety of finishes and designs and can be easily cut with a utility knife, which makes installation fairly straight forward. It can be fastened to the wall with adhesive or double-sided tape. The one drawback of this product is that it cannot be used behind a stove, although it is said to be suitable for an installation above the stove.
So there you have it. Façade, fasade. Tomato, tomahto. Never thought I was going to get any mileage out of that!
Joseph
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