Kitchen Backsplash
The new white shaker uppers went in last month, the quartz landed two weeks ago, and the 18-inch band of bare drywall behind the range is what is keeping the kitchen from looking finished. The 1998 white ceramic 4x4 backsplash that has held up but reads dated next to every other update in the room. The Seattle-craftsman kitchen update where the homeowner has been pinning zellige tile to a board for six months and wants to see it on the wall. The remodel where the design has called for floor-to-ceiling 24x48 porcelain slab behind the range since the first cabinet drawing. Kitchen backsplash is the most-common kitchen tile scope and the one where the pattern call, the substrate prep, and the grout-color match make the difference between an install that reads as designed and one that reads as a Saturday project. Handis covers five pattern variants below — subway, herringbone, mosaic, full-height slab-look, and zellige or handmade-look — same install crew, same Mapei or Custom Versabond thinset matched to the pattern, same outlet-cover-swap and color-matched silicone discipline on every job. From $1,100 for a small subway run up to $6,000 for a full-height slab-look on a large kitchen L-shape with hood coordination.
Variants
Kitchen Backsplash Pricing
Final pricing depends on linear feet, tile material and format, joint complexity, and substrate condition. Each variant page below has detailed pricing for that pattern. Tile is line-itemed separately from labor on every quote so you see the material cost clearly. Request a free estimate for an accurate quote.
Send a phone photo of the wall and the countertop and tell us the pattern — we will confirm the right tile size and quote tile and labor line by line.
Why Seattle Homeowners Book Handis for Kitchen Backsplash
The single most-common DIY or rookie-installer kitchen backsplash failure is the outside-course cut on the outside corner that no one balanced from the range center. The cuts come out asymmetric, the eye reads the unbalance every time the homeowner walks into the kitchen, and the only remedy is full demo and re-set from the right reference line. Handis lays out every pattern from the range center first, dry-fits the outside courses to confirm the cuts come out symmetric, then sets the first course off the countertop plumb to a 4-foot level. The detail that takes 20 minutes on install day saves a full demo two months later. We will tell you on the booking call what the pattern call costs and where the visible cuts will land before any tile is ordered.
Estimate
Send us a phone photo of the kitchen wall, the existing backsplash if any, the countertop edge where the new tile will meet, and the underside of the upper cabinets where the top course will tuck. Tell us the linear feet, the pattern you want (subway, herringbone, mosaic, full-height slab-look, zellige), and any specified product. We send a written quote with tile and labor line-itemed separately and any electrician sub portion named line by line.
What Our Customers Say
Recent kitchen backsplash reviews from verified Handis customers across pattern types.
Standard white subway in a running-bond across the main counter plus the range wall in our 1998 Bellevue kitchen. Tech skim-coated two seams in the drywall before tile went down, swapped every outlet to a spacer ring and oversize cover, and color-matched a silicone bead at the quartz seam. Two working days. The install reads as flush as the cabinet faces.
Herringbone porcelain in our Mercer Island update. The pattern got laid out from the range center first so the cuts on both outside corners came out symmetric. Mitered the corners to read as continuous tile. Three working days. The herringbone reads as the visual anchor of the kitchen now.
Glass mosaic across our coffee-bar nook in a Capitol Hill condo. Pre-meshed sheets, four linear feet, the rookie installer we hired first had cracked four tiles trying to cut around the outlet. Handis re-cut the field, sealed the outlet box with the spacer ring, set the new tile clean. The patch reads as continuous with no visible cut edges.
24x48 porcelain slab counter-to-cabinet in a remodel in Sammamish. Two big panels behind the range, one panel on each return, all mitered at the outside corners. The grout seams across panels are tight enough I had to look at where the grout sits to find them. Reads like a single sheet of stone.
Zellige in our 1929 Wallingford bungalow update. We knew zellige was supposed to be irregular and we wanted that look. The Handis crew back-buttered every tile, kept the joints tight where the edges allowed and let them open where they had to, color-matched the grout to bring out the variation. Three days for a small L-shape. Exactly the artisan look we sent them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about Handis kitchen backsplash installation across subway, herringbone, mosaic, full-height slab-look, and zellige pattern types.