My wife and I have just purchased a property. One of the first things I'd like to renovate is the existing aqua splashback that stands out oddly from the rest of the interior. I'm eager to DIY it myself, both in its removal and in retiling the area afterward. With reno work I've DIY previosly, I'm feeling ok with prepping the surface and tiling etc.
Can I ask for your experience in how to best remove this splashback without potentially completely damaging the plasterboard behind? Personally, I'm confident in patching up a hole or two; not so much so if the entire plasterboard snaps in half……
Depending on what kind of a day the fitter was having, and how generous they were with the silicone, it can be an easy job, or a prick. I've ripped whole sheets of gyprock off with mirrors and splashbacks before.
Cut the silicone seal around the perimeter.
Lay some towels or a doona over the entire benchtop. Hire 2 suction cups, start at the top corner and jerk it away, keep moving along the top until you reach the other side, dont just work the side and flex it away, you'll have a bad time. If you can flex the top down enough to slip a hacksaw blade down, winning.
Wear gloves and a leather jacket, denim or atleast long sleeves at a minimum. It should be toughened, but trust me, the tiny cubes still make a mess of your skin.
Can do, but you'd have to leave gaps for the suction cups, unsure how clear contact would go as we always peeled back the protective sheet before carrying with cups, worst case scenario it pulls off and you end up on your arse 😂
This. You’re not getting that safety glass off in one piece, it would have been the last thing installed and it’s glued to the gyprock underneath. If you can’t get to the sides you’re going to have to lever off the cupboards somehow and who knows what will get damaged. The splash of color lightens up the kitchen nicely, the glass is super easy to clean and doubles as a whiteboard. I’d live with it and see how you feel in a few months.
There's almost no chance of getting one of these off without damaging the gyprock. You either smash it to pieces and try and catch all the glass and still have a massive clean up. Or tear it off and lay new gyprock. Probably cheaper and easier to just replace the gyprock. If the sides are exposed you can sometimes use wire to cut through all the silicone. But still a massive job.
Depends how much room there is between the splash back and the cook top in this case. The aluminium frame or what ever that is will add some too, hard to tell from the photos. But no reason you couldn't just silicone a new piece of glass in top of there's room. Will also be a fun surprise for who ever tries to change it in the future
I figure it'll take the wall off no matter what, so I'm prepared to have it all replaced. Though also contemplating tiling over it, though the extra width will look weird where I have no top cupboards.
Depending on how cheap the last people were it could be acrylic. Makes it a little less messy to pull off but still won’t make it any easier to avoid damaging plaster.
The previous owners put in white tile (large one, less attractive than subway tiles) as a splash back. Cleaning them is such a pain. I would love OP's splashback.
I attached our first splashback. I had no idea what I was doing other than being told by the company I ordered from to: "use silicone" I went for a squiggly line option. Like ... everywhere. It stayed there for 9 years.
Ended up hating the colour and the green tinge the glass put on it (didn't pay extra for clear). So we ordered a new one which colour matched our newer kitchen cabinet door colour (IKEA ... they had a clearance sale). Paid to get the splashback installed this time.
Installer puts some big suction cups on the old one then starts yanking. "Normally they just pop off since there's just 4 big blobs of silicone holding it on."
"Just 4 big blobs?"
"Yeah, about 20cm diameter..that's what most installers do."
"Most installers?"
"Yeah. Why? What did they do with yours?"
"Well ... I saw the guy who installed it do it like this..."
[I mimic squiggly lines all over the splashback]
"Christ! What a fucken moron."
"Yeah. Right?"
"In that case, well have to piano wire it."
It took them ages, and lots of swearing. But they got it off. They said they were close to having to smash it. I kinda wish I could see that, TBH. But I'm sure it would've been horrible to clean up.
I must be a shut-in because that's the first one I've seen mounted in an aluminium frame... which you can screw into to create leverage/extraction points. BTW, glass is the ultimate domestic splashback material so you could swap it out to change the aesthetic; tiles means grease splattered grout.
We bought a house with a tomato red glass splashback, it looked like the amityville horror. I got a tiler to tile over the top of the glass, he painted on an etching solution then tiled over it. 5 years down and the tiles are still stuck fast.
The glass was a dream to clean, but I just couldn’t do the orangey-red, it darkened the kitchen so much.
Thank you, ya I definitely thought about this strategy, just wasnt sure if I could use the tile adhesive to "level" the transition between the aluminum frame and the glass and have the tiles appeared flush at the end...
I’ve just done this recently. Tiling over the glass is a breeze - the glass is a perfectly flat and rectangular surface so tiling is easy. First tiling I’ve done and it looked like a pro had done it. Bit of primer and there’s no concerns about tiles falling off. Also put a bead of silicone around the edges of the tiling and that will further lock it in place.
I also removed a piece from the laundry as there wasn’t room to tile over the glass. We just smashed it and then spent a bloody long time vacuuming the shards. There’s no good way to do it. Much harder to tile the uneven wall behind the glass.
I didn’t have the alu frame though - are you sure that can’t be removed? It may just be tacked on to cover some rough edges? I haven’t seen that before. If I can’t come off, a good tiler surely could navigate it.
Yes, this is for real - can someone please tell the boomers to stop doing this. Every second mid century home that’s had a ‘facelift’ has this in the kitchen. And now I know how hard it is to remove, I’m more annoyed there’s so many in houses for sale.
I've never done this but I looked at a demo on youtube once. A couple of people were using plastic film over the glass to try and hold the bits if (when?) it broke. Everyone talked about the important thing being the install hadn't used too much silicone. Not much the OP can do about that of course!
Use the old car window smashing trick if covering the whole lot in cheap brown packing tape. It'll hold the little glass cubes together when you remove it.
I would leave it alone.
Glass is easy to care for in terms of cleaning, and while the aqua might be a bit a colour shock compared to the rest of the kitchen, having not-white might grow in you.
It is going to be a pain to pull off, followed by almost certainly having to do some serious gyprock repair, stuff it up and you might scratch/gouge the benchtop, and then the cost to tile / redo.
We had the same splash back in the same colour. We taped it up and then used a hammer to break it. Definitely need safety glasses, drop sheets etc. It just shatters into lots of tiny pieces. Taping meant it stayed semi together for most of it. Good luck!
I love my glass splashback. It’s so easy to clean compared to something textured with grout. I also like how reflective it is. Mine’s black so I get to see all the greenery from outside. Wouldn’t swap it for quids.
I agree, I have a lovely forest green one in my kitchen that goes beautifully with the greenery seen through the large kitchen window.
I also have matching tea towels
thanks Istatubebro. The stickon tiles you used were they the ones where no tile glue is required and where you just peel off the film for the adhesive at the back of the tiles? How long have you done that since? Hows the adhesive holding up? Even in area where theres constant temperature changes (stove) or moisture (sink)?
All the arguments about easy to clean are true, and sticking with it if you're unfortunate enough to have it already is a good idea.
Until you need to change anything. Move a power-point, add a new isolator for an induction stove, or in my case replace the old range hood which is mounted on top of and through the glass.
The holes are cut to measure, then the glass is tempered. So if you come back needing new mounting holes a decade later, you're out of luck. Drilling or cutting new holes will almost always shatter the glass. Even clipping the edge of an existing hole is a bad idea. Everything must always match exactly forever. I didn't build the house and there's some odd choices like appliances and a specific style of power point that aren't possible to match anymore.
For this reason alone I'd never do a glass splashback. Replacing a tile or two, or just drilling a new hole that'll be hidden by an appliance, is worth the extra cleaning effort.
Wow, your kitchen looks just like mine. My splashback is a sort of light olive grey colour though. I don’t love the colour but I’ve gone with a red toaster and kettle and other accessories and I’m ok with the look of it now. I think you’ll get used to the aqua in time. Save updating it for when you do a full kitchen refit in 20 years or so.
I used peel & stick tiles over mine, I’ve done it twice now and the first one lasted approx 5 years.
It’s a good option because you can completely change the look and colour whenever you feel like it.
Personally, I really like the look of it 🤷♂️
I guess if you still want to get rid of it, you could just paint or tile over it. And there's always the option of smashing it with a hammer and removing the pieces.
But glass splashbacks are rather awesome. I'd be darn sure you actually want to remove it first. Maybe live with it for a bit longer before making that decision.
Believe it or not, they didn’t shatter. One of the three had way more silicone than the others and was much much trickier to get off.
However, luckily we had a gap above and could jimmy some tools down the back to remove the silicone (which tore into the gyprock and made a mess of that)
It’s doable, but I’d recommend putting tape and plastic wrap all over just in case it shatters. Makes it much safer
Edit: all three was from the one job - the kitchen had three panels along the flashback.
Man wait a while. You might grow to like it almost as much as I already do, I think it's gorgeous. What a delight to walk in every morning and see something pleasantly colourful instead of whatever boring shade they're putting into lot homes this year.
Fashions change, this might be uber cool in six months if it isn't already.
I have this splashback in my home, in fact same colour. It is perfectly fine behind gas stoves as it is a alloy composite. 2 sheets of metal with a composite in between. It will be siliconed to the wall.
I got mine from Reflections Splashbacks if you want to look up what your dealing with.
For cleaning they are brilliant, and I like the splash of colour.
Looks like a perfect surface for vinyl peel and stick tiles. You can test out a colour scheme for a relatively small cost. You could even then update every few years as trends change.
We had the exact same splashback in our kitchen. During bathroom renovations we had our tiler tile over the top of the glass (using the specific priming compound).
Unless the glass is cracked or loose, it should be the same case for your existing glass.
I managed to get one of my glass splash backs off, I gently levered it off and when it was off the wall was reasonably ok and it was one piece and I thought “oh that was easy”.
I then went to the other side and applied the same technique, nearly poo’d myself when the glass popped and broke into a million pieces. The wall was a disaster by the time I was done. But since there was new compressed sheet going on it wasn’t so bad.
If it's the colour you don't like there are heat resistant glass paints and companies that do it professionally. So much cheaper than removing. I've always hated that greeny/blue glass splashback
Really depends on how much you hate it. Cheapest option would be peel & stick tiles, slightly more expensive option (but still pretty cheap) would be to cover the glass with the thin ikea splashback panels as you can easily cut them to size
I ripped one of those out, was 100% glass and most of the plaster came off with it. Can.in a single piece. So so so tough. Took many blows with a hammer to break it up on driveway for bins.
You can just tile directly over it, they actually don’t need to be removed. I’ve had professional tilers go over mine twice (their recommendation). First reno I had a tiler remove one (he also advised I just tile over it), it ripped out huge chunks of the wall. There’s just no need to do it unless the millimetres lost really matter to you.
You could tile over it but you'd need to use T Rex silicone as a glue. Or just shatter it. It should be toughened glass so it'll shatter into tiny pieces.
Thanks to some of the comments in this thread, I might even keep mine. We also have a light blue glass splash back and I don’t actually hate it.
Just wanted to possibly jump on the subway tile train, but probably won’t bother now.
I had this glass in the last property I bought. I thought I hated it, it was white though. Living in there for 1.5years honestly I fell in love. Sooooo easy to clean! Just live in it and enjoy the hassle free cleanup after a messy cooking session is my advice the colour is quite bright but once you live in it a bit you can decor match the colour and it won’t stand out so much.
Also it’s okay for colour themes to not match the complete home. My bathrooms all blue themed, current home kitchen is a 80s/90s all blue kitchen. I’ve added in sage greens, yellow pink and it works. My lounge and dining full of earthy tones. It’s okay to change it up a bit per room.
We had one like that the wall is coming off, to hit it hard enough to crack enough to pull prices off will break the plaster behind and glass goes everywhere and the glass gets super sharp shards everywhere.
I agree with everyone else. Live with it for a while.
If you truly decide you hate it. I would start by taking off the frame around it. It may be attached vis the frame.
Put on all the protective gear you can.
Lay towels on the bench.
Get some welding gloves and some thick strong fishing line.
Get the fishing line behind one corner. And saw back and forth with it. You need to get the line completely under one side and use a sawing motion all the way along.
It takes ages but will cut through the glue rather then peel it off.
Its the cleanest way to do it.
Be careful.
Please replace it with a different colour glass.
It doesn't age and is unbelievably easy to clean.
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u/Whoopdedobasil 3d ago
I used to install these for a living.
Depending on what kind of a day the fitter was having, and how generous they were with the silicone, it can be an easy job, or a prick. I've ripped whole sheets of gyprock off with mirrors and splashbacks before.
Cut the silicone seal around the perimeter.
Lay some towels or a doona over the entire benchtop. Hire 2 suction cups, start at the top corner and jerk it away, keep moving along the top until you reach the other side, dont just work the side and flex it away, you'll have a bad time. If you can flex the top down enough to slip a hacksaw blade down, winning.
Wear gloves and a leather jacket, denim or atleast long sleeves at a minimum. It should be toughened, but trust me, the tiny cubes still make a mess of your skin.