How to Install Backsplash With Musselbound

We’ve been working hard on our kitchen for a couple of months now, but the biggest change so far is probably this backsplash. The oddly textured paneling that was on the wall before had a couple of random holes stuffed with what genuinely looked like a squirrel’s tail, and we were more than happy when the motivation came to finally add a backsplash. Now we need to share how to install backsplash with Musselbound.

We hadn’t ever installed backsplash before, but we did add subway tile in our old guest bathroom and tiled the fireplace we built a couple of months ago. I still knew that this bumpy, rough wall would present some, ughhh, difficulties, so we took our chances with a new product we’d heard about on Instagram called Musselbound.

It’s basically like a double-sided sticky mat that you use instead of thinset and it saves so much mess, plus there’s the added benefit that you can take the project slowly if you need to. With thinset, you mix it up and have a limited period of time before it starts to harden and get crumbly, but with a sticky mat, you can work all at once or just add a few more tiles every time you wander into the kitchen to mindlessly scour the fridge, or whatever.

Disclaimer: This post isn’t sponsored or anything, we’re just sharing what we’ve tried!

So, here’s how to install backsplash with MusselBound without the mess.

Prep your surface

I think technically Musselbound isn’t supposed to be used on textured surfaces like we have, but it’s been a couple of months of our finished backsplash and it’s worked great. So, the first step is to clean and degrease your surface, especially if it’s the kitchen since the wall tends to get kind of grimy even if it doesn’t look that way.

Stick the Musselbound to the wall

The adhesive mat comes in long sheets, so peel back the protective backing from one of the sides and stick it onto the wall (I thought of it like I was in sixth grade again, contact papering all my school books.)

Smooth out any bubbles as best you can and make sure you line up each row as close as possible so there isn’t a gap between the rows (it’s really easy to cut it with a box cutter when you get to the countertop or wall).

Use a grout float to press down on the Musselbound for a few seconds in each spot to make sure it’s really stuck to the wall.

Keep going to roll the Musselbound across your whole surface to be tiled, just make sure you don’t peel off the front that’s going to have the tile on it just yet.

Start tiling

Because our walls were so textured and I wasn’t sure if it would mess with how flat the final tiling job would look, we opted for a textured subway tile with more organic edges that gave us a little more grace because it’s supposed to have a bit of an unfinished look.

This is the best part of the adhesive tile mat: you just roll down the front paper on the Musselbound and stick the tile right on there!

We used the smallest tile spacers we could (I think about 1/16th of an inch) and moved right along the wall, sticking each tile down, pressing down on them with the grout float for about 20 seconds, and moving right on to the next one. You’ve got a few seconds to pull a tile off and re-stick it if you place it incorrectly, but try your best to line it up right the first time because it’s a bitch to pry off when it’s stuck on there.

We had a wet tile saw that we decided to invest in when we worked on our fireplace, so I used that for all the weird cuts around the outlets and cabinets, which brings me to the biggest downside about this product.

If the tile is at all wet, or has any kind of residue on it, it won’t stick. The tile saw not only wets the tiles as it cuts them, but it leaves a dusty kind of clay residue on the back, so I had to make sure they were all really clean and dry before sticking them on the wall, which you wouldn’t necessarily need to do with thinset.

Get to grouting

So it took me probably a full week of working bit-by-bit to get all the tiling done, but once the tile was all set in place, I was able to start grouting right away as opposed to waiting for the thinset to dry. Grouting is a little stressful because, especially in our case using a dark grey, it looks like you’re smearing wet campfire ashes all over your beautiful tile and it’s going to be forever ruined.

But don’t worry, trust the process.

First you’ll take your grout (either pre-mixed or mix it yourself with the powder and water until it gets to a smooth, peanut butter-like consistency), and you’ll use your grout float to scoop up and smooth it right over the top of the tile.

Make sure to wipe the grout over in all directions to get it into the grooves evenly so you don’t have any patchy parts.

Once you’ve done a section or it’s been about 15 minutes of grouting, take a wrung-out grout sponge and rub it over the tile you’ve finished in small circles to wipe off the haze. Make sure to rinse out the sponge often and you might need to make a few passes over the same section to get it totally clean. If it still does look a bit hazy, leave it overnight and come back the next day with a microfiber cloth or paper towel and it should come right off.

Caulk the edges

If you buy your caulk from one of the big box stores, you can usually buy tile caulk to match the same color. This will be used for the seam of the countertop, around windows and the edges where the tile ends. You use it the same way as regular caulk (check out our pro caulking tip here) as the finishing step.

And you’re done! We’ve been really happy with the final product and it’s given our kitchen a whole new vibe that’s much more modern and updated. We hope it’s worked the same for you!

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