Installing a mosaic: confession time

Before we go any further, I need to lay my cards on the table. My obsession with mosaics is pretty much unlimited. I spend inordinate amounts of time designing them, making them, grouting them, thinking about them and writing about them. I am equally comfortable with the direct or indirect methods. On mesh or in 3D is fine. I change rods into cubes and cubes into pieces that fit. I cast them in concrete and buff them to perfection but when it comes to installing a mosaic something in me balks and I don’t want to have anything to do with them. At that point I sit back and hand over to the floor-laying and wall-tiling experts.

But even though I didn’t have a direct hand in installing this kitchen splashback I thought it would be helpful for you DIYers out there (or for people with more guts than me) to see how easy the process is. This is my own version of the famous Vatican Museum Unswept Floor Mosaic which I wrote about in a previous post.

It’s made on mesh and I cut it into four pieces (see above) so it could be transported easily.

Installing a mosaic kitchen splash back

Step One

Prepare the surface. The chap we used removed the light above the cooker and put strips of tape down either side of the area where the mosaic was going to be installed. Speaking purely as a back seat tile installer I would have also scored the surface to ensure that there’d be plenty of grip:

Step Two

Apply tile adhesive over the wall’s surface with a notched trowel:

Step Three

Carefully lay the mosaic sheets onto the adhesive:

Step Four

And tamp them in so that they are nice and firmly stuck:

Step Five

Finish laying the mosaic pieces:

At this point it is more or less inevitable that adhesive will seep through from the wall and be visible on the stones as it has done in these three areas:

Don’t worry. It will be wiped off during the grouting stage.

Step Six

Choose your grout – this is just a normal grey tile grout – and mix it according to the packet instructions and apply. For more on grouting go to my previous post: Making a Mosaic Trivet, Part IV: Grouting a mosaic

Step Seven

Clean off grout thoroughly and (if you are using stone tesserae) wax and/or varnish to bring out the colours:

For more mosaic tutorials, just click on the mosaic tutorial tab at the top of the page.