Alternative to wall tiles - kitchen

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Tyne and Wear
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Hi, I'm new here. Just I'm in the process of installing a new kitchen and I am after doing something to the wall other than tiles.

I will probs be putting a splashback up behind the cooker but what to do with the rest of the walls.

Does anyone have any ideas, pics of what they have tried.

I like the idea of glass but I think it may be too much. :(

I am not putting any wall units on so I can probably get away with something that does not come up too high from the work tops, infact, it would be good to keep it below the level of the sockets, about 22cm.

Any idea would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
 
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If you like the New England look, you could try putting up mdf t&g cladding. You can buy it in sheets at B & Q and you stick it on with 'grabslikenails.' Add a bit of dado and paint it and it will look great. I've used a heavier version (from a local timber yard) in a cloakroom behind a washbasin and it was just fine.
 
Or if you want a high-tech look, what about stainless steel sheet? Again, it does look wonderful but it's high maintenance and shows every fingermark.
 
I like the stainles idea, was probs going to go for a stainles splash back so that will probs look good. Going for a black high gloss kitchen also so should look good.

Cleaning it will be a problem all round I guess.

Anyone tried glass? Is it expensive?
 
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I would go for steel mosaic sheets the look really smart you can get loads of different patterns and you can also get cleaning solutions for them.
 
My Uncle stuck tile-effect linoleum to the walls! :LOL: It didn't look too bad actually!
 
I like the Idea of Glass alot......specially if one side is sprayed black or maybe a greeny blue. I saw it on a Home improvement program once but they had cupboards above it and at night it was light with under cupboard lights that were different colours, It looked very nice
 
Crafty said:
My Uncle stuck tile-effect linoleum to the walls! :LOL: It didn't look too bad actually!

We had vinyl floor covering on our kitchen walls for the last 15 years. Easy to clean and hard wearing. Looked very good ( comments from other people )

We also used cushion floor for the walls of the shower room. Never had any condensation as the surface had effective thermal insulation between it and the plaster board.
 
Hi,

This is my first post here so here we go...

I had the same dilemer last year when i fitted my Ikea kitchen into our new Kitchen extension ( Very good it is too, apart from the lack of sservice space behind the units !!! )

Any way i wanted to do something different with the splash backs to add some colour into the kitchen (Its gloss white " Abstrakt" doors with Oak block worktops.) I decided that i wanted a frosted glass splash back but this was WAY to expensive for my budget, so i had to think hard. The idea of a glass splashback wouldnt go away, until I had a brain wave, to use Plastic Acrylic sheeteing.

I sourced a swatch pack from a Local company that make scientific equipment (Called Sci-Plas, should you want to know :) )

Me and Mrs Smith chose a frosted Orange ICI acrylic, did the measurements, including cut outs for plug sockets etc, and ordered the sheet/s. (The sheets where only available in 2M lengths so we had to take into account joins in the finished design (Kitchen is 4 M square.)

Sci-Plas where great they laser cut all of the sheets and we went and collected them. Perfect fit first time ! :D

I had to work out how to hold them to the wall next.... i thought of Mirror capped screws, but then thought that they would look rubbish all over th place, so did some re-search at my local glass shop, and decided on 12mm Glass tape. As this can be seen through the sheet i had to apply it precisley, and miter all of the corner joins.

The Glass tape worked and has stuck to the wall like preverbial s*#t to a blanket.

I'm really happy with the outcome, around the plug sockets etc.... especially as it looks like Glass until you touch it :D

No issues found so far, except that the section behind the cooker hob 'bows' out when cooking on the back to rings (Ceramic Hob) But there is no permanent damage, I have solved this by placing a 5 inch high strip of worktop off cut standing up against it when cooking. Job done.

Best of all it only cost me £250.00 :D :D

I'll post some Pics if anyone wants me to ?.

Adi
 
top idea, I did an entire shower wall in acrylic, 1 year on and no crappy horrible grout lines to get dirty :D

b/
 
Cramman,

We have used stainless steel splashbacks for the walls in our daughters kitchen. We put it along one wall above the worktop and up into the area above the hob and under the extractor fan.

After spending a great deal of time pricing up and finding out how very expensive they were to buy over the counter or have made to measure, and realising we needed to be able to cut out for electric sockets, we found a local metal fabrication company who cut the 3 pieces of 3mm thick stainless steel exactly the size we wanted and we got it in brushed stainless steel. We fitted to the walls using Gripfix. To clean all the finger marks off stainless steel and to keep it clean you need to use baby oil (yes baby oil), which works a treat. If you go to B&Q you will find that they only do in certain sizes and also have a backing material and the sizes are rounded edged which wont work on a long run.

Hope this helps.

Rustynails
 

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