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If you're having a new home built and you want something different for your kitchen, why not go for a frosted glass splash back? The customizing options are immense, and frosted glass, particularly when colored, produces an interesting, subtle impact that will create a totally unique kitchen.

How Is Frosted Glass Made?

You might be wondering how frosted glass is different to standard glass. Frosted glass begins life as standard glass, but it undergoes an additional process to create its typical textured, decorative, cloudy look. Two common ways of creating the frosted effect are acid etching and sandblasting.  With acid etching, glass is treated using a hydrofluoric acid mixture, which erodes the surface. A mask controls the areas of glass being affected, so intricate patterns and designs can be created. With abrasive blasting or sandblasting, sand or other abrasive materials are sprayed at high pressure onto a glass surface, roughening and eroding it to create frosted glass. This method of etching is suited to more basic designs. 

Customizing Frosted Glass

A great advantage of using frosted glass for a kitchen splash back is the countless design options when it comes to customization. You can usually choose the degree of opacity of the glass, so you can choose glass that is more or less cloudy. On top of this, you will have an endless array of patterns and designs to choose from when getting the glass frosted, including organic waves, streaks, starbursts and timber grain patterns. 

Frosted glass splash backs can also be colored; you could go for a beautifully muted greeny-blue or maroon to complement the subtle effect of frosted glass. Or a bright red frosted splash back will create a statement.

Types Of Glass

Before going ahead with the frosting process, you should pay attention to the kind of glass you begin with. Regular 'clear' glass typically has a green tinge, so if you want to eliminate this, choose low-iron glass. This is particularly important if you're coloring the frosted splash back, as your colors of choice will not come out perfectly pure if you begin with a green-tinged piece of glass. 

Frosted glass, whether regular or low iron, can be toughened to be hardy and heat resistant and is suitable for behind stove tops. Bear in mind that, as toughened glass needs to be trimmed before the toughening process and not after, you, or an expert custom home builder, need to measure the splash back area precisely to avoid costly mistakes.

If you want to create a kitchen that is a bit different, why not install a frosted glass splash back? After you've chosen from the various customizing options, the chances are that no one else will have another splash back the same as yours. Contact a custom home builder for additional advice.