Photo by Robert Anderson on Unsplash

I think after a week of living in our current home, we decided that the plastic “tin tile”-style backsplash had to go. About four years later we decided to replace it with wood planks.

The boards have sat in the box for months.

We removed the backsplash to reveal utter destruction to the drywall beneath. Undeterred, we patiently primed, patched, re-skimmed, and repainted until it was good-ish. (The boards have to be installed on a smooth painted surface. We got there. It just took a lot of time and patience.)

March 5-6 was the weekend when we had to just start. Starting is hard. We didn’t know what we were doing. There are multiple switch plates to work around. It’s not entirely even. The boards are assorted colors and lengths. This mixture looked great on the website but became downright confounding when piled on the countertop.

We had to get to a place where it was okay to fail. That happened around February 27. Things take longer than you think they will, and that includes being okay with failing.

I’d like to tell you we finished it in one weekend, but the truth is we got three rows installed the first weekend. And when I say we, it was really all Robert. My job was to provide words of affirmation. That’s my love language, but I don’t think it’s Robert’s. Unless he’s doing something he’s never done before, then it’s BRING ON THE WORDS OF AFFIRMATION!

Early assessment: it looks great! It warms up the kitchen. We love the wood. It’s not difficult, but it is time-consuming to make the shaped cuts. We needed to add spacers to the outlets. I wish we had under cabinet lighting. We improvised with our LED lanterns.