Bob Karlovits
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Countertop and surface dealer Ed Vangura sums up the nature of backsplash projects rather succinctly.

“Backsplashes are where design and practicality come together,” says the head of Vangura Surfacing Products of North Huntingdon.

It also is “the icing on the cake” of kitchen and even bathroom projects, adds Ruth Thompson, interior designer from New Angle Design in Hampton.

Yet, it is an area of design that sometimes can be overlooked by consumers undertaking home renovations.

The idea is rather simple: Put a coating on the wall behind the cooking or food preparation area that protects against uncooperative spaghetti sauce. Or it can be the savior of water and soap splashes in the bathroom.

Easy, right? Nikkee Edmiston, kitchen designer from the Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse in the Waterfront, Homestead, points to sheets of stainless steel that can go behind a cooking area. They are 30 inches by 24 inches and sell for $38.

But Lee Knox from Shadyside’s Tile and Designs Inc. says glass has become a popular backsplash material. It comes in sizes from half-inch to 12-inch squares, is multicolored, and creates a remarkable contrast to stone countertops. It can sell for $100 a square foot.

Prices generally are between those two. Kathleen Moss of Shadyside says she and her husband, John, customers of Knox’s, spent $25 a square foot for glass in their kitchen backsplash. But Moss knew she was going to do a backsplash all along and wanted glass, so the expense was not an issue.

It cost $3,000 for Roger and Janet Stepanik-Kaufold of Ohio Township, but she has no regrets about the expense.

“It just sounded great,” she says of the brick and granite design. “I actually thought it would be more than that.”

Taking a shine on glass

Backsplashes can range from small squares of adhesively applied plastic to a wall of granite above the countertop, but glass has claimed a big role.

Vangura, who deals largely in solid surfaces such as Corian, stone and laminates, sees the life in the glass market as a style trend.

“We’re in the fashion business,” Knox says about glass.

Denny Pfeifer from Kitchen Fair Discount Center in Hampton says ceramic tile is his biggest seller, but that is followed by glass.

Designers and retailers think the flexibility, variability and practicality of glass make it a popular material.

Knox, for instance, talks about how the size of the pieces and the color create great possibilities for design and “iridescence.” Beyond that, she says, it serves as a good shield from stains. While she admits the price can hit that $100 a square foot, she says it also can be as low as $6 for such a square.

Ann Rose, vice president of Walls, Floors & More in Castle Shannon, says it is possible to do a good design with $5- to $10-per-square-foot glass and to get extravagant at only $30 to $40 for that size.

She also says it is possible to use small strips of glass as accents with other material. That can be taken from one or two squares of the pattern, thus adding little to the cost.

“We’re always trying to teach people how to do more with less,” she says.

Both Rose and Knox say the ease of cleaning glass is one of its strongest features.

“And Pittsburgh is practical,” Rose says. “We all know that.”

Other forms of practicality

Such practicality generally plays a part in the backsplash issue, the professionals say.

New Angle’s Thompson, for instance. is an advocate of porcelain tile because it comes in many colors, is strong and is easy to clean, all important roles.

At times it can be bought for $10 a square foot.

Ceramic tile still has a large share in the market, retailers say. Like Pfeifer, Rose still sells a great deal of ceramic, pointing to textured designs as popular.

Jeffrey Backus, president of Manor House Kitchen and Bath, headquartered in Jeannette, says his firm deals largely in pieces of stone, tile and glass, but also points to another method. That is continuing the countertop material up the wall.

“It makes a great look,” he says, but admits there are some problems. Such material can cost $50 to $120 a square foot, and then there are costs involved in cutting holes for outlets and connections.

While the jobs can involve great design work and costly material, simple backsplash areas can be handled by do-it-yourselfers, Lowe’s Edmiston says.

Sheets of adhesively attached plastic are sold at about $6.50 a square foot with similar metal patterns at $13 for the same size. But when that is too plain, she has another suggestion: flooring.

Foot-square pieces of ceramic, faux stone and glass material used for floors also can be hung on a wall and grouted for the popular backsplash look.

They sell at $12 per sheet for glass and $5.30 for ceramic.

“If they don’t like the little squares, I send them right back to flooring,” she says.

Backsplash too often on the back burner

Mark Uchida, owner of A reMARKable Kitchen in Blawnox, says he often finds a need “to engage the customer in the design process” for backsplashes.

He and other designers find the need for a backsplash isn’t always high in project thinking. Nor is knowledge about the variety of material. That isn’t always the case, though.

For instance, Doretta Whalen knew from the start she would need a backsplash when she began work with Walls, Floors & More in Castle Shannon.

“I had files of backsplash ideas,” she says,

But when Janet Stepanik-Kaufold and her husband, Roger, had a kitchen job done by Uchida, it was two months into a large, three-month job before they decided one was necessary.

“Mark had mentioned one earlier, and then, when we got there, he said maybe we should talk about it,” she says.

Ernie Vallozzi, owner of Vallozzi’s Restaurant in Hempfield, knew the importance of a backsplash. Rather than letting cooking stains permanently damage kitchen walls, the backsplash offers a protective area that is easily cleanable.

He liked glass for that reason and for the color it provides.

The Vallozzi project covers a 35-foot-long space and goes from 3 to 4 feet high, so the image of the glass naturally is strong. But Kathleen and John Moss of Shadyside saw the same benefit in an area that is about 18 feet long and only 18 inches high.

“I had seen a picture or two, and it helped create a look that is contemporary but not ultra,” she says.

That size issue often is a crucial one. Because it often is the space between the cook surface and the cabinets, it most often amounts to only about 18 inches. That causes some homeowners to not be concerned with the small area, says Ruth Thompson from New Angle Design in Hampton.

“You can see some people trying to forget about it and cheap it out,” she says.

It also can create problems for designers, Ed Vangura says. “It is such a small space, it is difficult to make a statement,” says the owner of Vangura Surfacing Products in North Huntingdon.

But those statements can be made. When Bette and Kenneth Salmon of Fox Chapel saw the onyx and travertine that became their backsplash, the beauty of the combination demanded its use.

“We sort of drifted into it,” she says of the backsplash idea that wasn’t in the original plans.

It ended up costing about $2,500, a bit more than the $1,000 they had figured, but that didn’t matter, she says.

“It gave us something we enjoy looking at,” she adds, “and it is important.”

Similarly, Mark and Geeta Kemp of Friendship ended up spending about $1,300 for glass at Tile and Designs in Shadyside, but Mark says it is part of a job.

“Oh, well, you just end up getting something you like,” he says.

Vallozzi says the expense is worth it, but understands how the money issue can come into play.

“It’s always one of the last things you do, so it’s always more than you want to spend,” he says.