Backsplash Tiling Projects and Electrical Outlets

Jazz up your kitchen backsplash with tiles.kitchen image by Daria Miroshnikova from Fotolia.com

It is surprising how much a kitchen can be transformed into a new convivial space with simple, inexpensive upgrades. Tiling a kitchen backsplash is one such upgrade that augments a standard kitchen design with splashes of fabulous style and color. Working a backsplash design into your kitchen involves making it work around the electrical outlets. Use simple solutions to make your electrical outlets blend virtually seamlessly into your backsplash design.

Tile Around the Outlets

Install the tile around the outlet. This can be approached with or without the outlets in mind. The first approach continues the tile across the backsplash from its starting point and merely cuts out the tile when it reaches the outlet openings. The second approach incorporates a tile design around each outlet. Install tiles in a framelike manner around the outlets. Use a complementing decorative or color tile to make each outlet look like a picture. Come back and set the rest of the backsplash tiles along the backsplash wall to create a backdrop to the tile-enhanced outlets.

Standard outlet covers do not pose much of a design conflict when used over a backsplash electrical outlet. If your kitchen has bold contrasting colors in its design and décor, you have to decide whether or not the contrasting color is a smart solution for the outlet covers. For example, would red electrical outlet covers work well against an earth-toned backsplash? Choosing outlet covers in the same color shades as the backsplash will make them blend in and virtually disappear against the wall. A smart contrasting outlet cover solution is to select covers in the same metallic tones as your kitchen faucet. Stainless steel, bronze or copper--these metals will shine as outlet covers against your kitchen backsplash.

Take your creative backsplash design a step further by ordering ceramic outlet plates or tiling electrical outlet covers for your backsplash. You will need the tile cutter to cut small pieces of tiles to fit over the cover. Give the standard outlet cover a light sand, use a glue to set the tiles in place over the outlet, and then grout the lines between the tiles. Once it sets and dries, buff it up and screw it over the outlet. If the thickness of the tiled cover causes the outlets to appear more recessed in the wall, have an electrician move the outlets out 1/4 inch to make the cover lay flush with the electrical outlets.