Kitchen Project: Backsplash and Under Cabinet Lighting

I added a recycled glass mosaic tile backsplash from Lowe's.  I would have rather had a lighter tile, but this was too cheap to pass up.

I bought premixed ready-to-use tile adhesive and applied it to the wall using a notched trowel.  At first, I was entirely too generous with the adhesive and did not scrape enough off the wall, and it squished through the tiles. I tried to get most of it off with a paper towel, and then had to use a utility knife after it dried to get all of the excess off.

I used a tile nipper to cut the areas around the electrical outlets.  Being a weakling, I was a bit concerned about using the tile nipper, but it turned out to not be difficult at all.

After I had all of the tiles on the wall, it looked way too dark. 

This led to my next project and ADD move: under cabinet lighting.

Better.  I installed Utilitech under cabinet lighting, which came in a pack of 5 with a dimmer.  Shamefully, and like a man, I did this without any research and without reading the directions.

Putting the lights up required a drill to get the screws to hold up the lights through the underside of the cabinet.  However, I did not have the correct drill bits to be drilling through the cabinets for the wires, but I was damned and determined to get it done anyway.  This led to a hot ghetto mess.  

Oops.

I drilled the first hole too low and it split the wood and the above happened.  At least the pack of lights came with little plastic wire holders that nail in. 

Better after that first incident, but still ghetto looking. Oh well, its done, and nobody needs to be lookin up under my cabinets.

I thought I was going to be able to easily run the cord straight up from the plug to start the under counter lighting and not have to drill a hole from the underside up into the cabinet. I did not take the dimmer box into account.

As you can see, the dimmer box in the cabinet is fairly large and needed to be hidden.  I hated that I  had to drill a hole large enough to fit the plug through the bottom of the cabinets, but oh well. To make this extra ghetto, I plan to try to color the exposed wire coming from the cabinet to the plug with a sharpie.

Will update after grouting.