This Super Cool Backsplash Came Together for Just $137

When food blogger Christine Han and her partner moved into their fixer-upper Brooklyn apartment in July 2021, they knew they would need to put their stamp on pretty much everything by making it over. So they got to work sanding and staining the counters, painting cabinets, and even swapping out the faulty plumbing. But the biggest change they made was to their backsplash. The couple did away with the original painted tile and decided to replace it with a major art project — and the idea for it came from an unlikely source. 

While the couple was having lunch one day over air-fried chicken nuggets and a favorite bottle of wine, Christine couldn’t help but notice the bottle’s bright patterns on the label. The design was made up of tiny little pieces — a mosaic look that Christine realized she could recreate with broken tiles. While a fully tiled backsplash would have been a lot easier to assemble, this mosaic was a clever way the pair could save money and create their own custom design.

Christine and her partner were inspired by the colors of the 1988 Seoul Olympics flag, which featured an abstract design made mostly of blue, red, and orange and included the five interlocking rings. “We cook a lot of Korean food, and as Korean Americans we wanted to represent a little bit of Korea in the space,” Christine says. “My partner has a very creative side,” she explains, so he sketched the backsplash design on his iPad and created a template. Christine was also able to find a box of broken Talavera tiles on Houzz for just $60. “When they make tiles, they have some accidents but there’s a market for people who want to make mosaics,” she says.

Together, the couple outlined the shapes they wanted to create on sticky mesh and began clipping the tiles to fit each space using a tile clipper. After laying out the areas of color, they realized they would need more off-white tile for the main background, so Christine bought tile from a factory in Queens.

This time the tile was intact, so Christine and her partner broke the off-white pieces themselves. Then, they attached the tiles to an adhesive mesh and to the wall with tile cement to be absolutely certain nothing would fall off. The couple started putting the pieces together on a Thursday evening. Christine managed to work through the weekend and was able to put up the handmade backsplash by Monday night.

Now, the eye-catching backsplash is one of the first things you notice in their kitchen — with such a personal and meaningful touch.

See Christine’s Full Reno Diary

• Before & After: This 100-Square-Foot Kitchen Got a Big, Beautiful Upgrade for Just $2,100
• This Apartment Kitchen Got a Major Makeover for $2,100 — Here’s How The Creative Renters Stretched Every Dollar
• This Super Cool Backsplash Came Together for Just $137