Splashbacks Canberra

Apex Bathrooms ACT has been fitting splashbacks in Canberra and Queanbeyan homes since 2008. It is family-owned - the owner measures the job and is there when it goes in - and the business holds NSW contractor licence 309929C and public liability insurance to $20 million.

A splashback is a protective material placed on a kitchen or bathroom wall to prevent water, heat or grease damage. It takes the spatter from the cooktop, the spray from the tap and the steam from everything else, and it means those end up on a surface built for them rather than on paint.

It is easy to clean, which is most of the point. It protects the wall behind it, which is the rest of the point. And because it sits at eye level across the busiest part of the room, it does more for how a kitchen looks than anything else of its size.

Splashbacks are not only a kitchen item. They belong behind a bathroom vanity and behind a laundry trough for the same reasons, and we fit them in all three rooms.

We install tiled, mosaic, glass, custom-printed and granite splashbacks, plus stainless steel and mirror to order. Engineered stone is not on that list: its supply and installation have been prohibited in Australia since 1 July 2024, so where a splashback has to match a benchtop we cut it from granite or a porcelain slab. Each one wears differently behind a cooktop, beside a tap and under a cloth, and the choice is worth making before we measure rather than after. Our guide to the six splashback materials and which room each one suits sets them side by side, with what each costs to buy and to live with. Tiled and mosaic splashbacks are tiling work, so they are covered on our tiling services page as well.

One local detail decides more of these jobs than the material does. Kitchens in the ex-government houses, and in the 1960s to 1980s brick homes of Belconnen, Tuggeranong, Woden and the Inner North, were built with only a shallow strip of wall left between the benchtop and the cupboards above it. That strip is what you are buying a splashback for, and its height rules some options out before taste gets a say.

Keep it simple on a wall that shallow. One cut panel, or a band two tiles deep, is what works. There is not enough height for a pattern to read, so a busy mosaic is lost on it, and a large-format tile has to be cut down until the cuts are the first thing you see. A single panel leaves no grout lines to scrub in the greasiest part of the room; two rows of a plain tile keep the cost down and match tiling you already have.

The other job we are called to in those houses is the retrofit. The original bathroom vanity and the laundry trough usually have nothing behind them at all, and the wall has been taking the water ever since. Those are small panels, quick to fit, and they stop a problem rather than decorate one. Either way, measure the wall before you settle on a finish; we do that on the first visit.

We handle the design and the installation, not just the fitting. That starts with a measure - a splashback is cut to your wall, and the measurement has to allow for a benchtop that is not perfectly level and a wall that is not perfectly straight, because neither of them ever is.

From there the panel or the tile is ordered or cut, and installation follows. Most installations are completed in a day. Larger areas and some materials take longer to prepare, so the lead time before the fitting day varies with what you choose.

Afterwards, care is simple: wipe it down regularly with a soft cloth and mild detergent. Natural stone is the one exception, and it wants a sealant made for that stone.

Price depends on the material, the area, how complicated the cuts are and what is behind the wall. The one published range we have is for glass, and our guide to splashback options prints it with the caveat it deserves, alongside which material is dearest and why. Every quote we give is itemised and subject to a site inspection first.