Hire a pro...Small job.

If you have no training/experience with installing tile then I would recommend hiring a professional. You won't be saving any money doing it yourself if the result is not optimum and not cleanly installed. Better to have it done correctly the first time. You will be much happier with how it looks.

Do you typically do a lot of DIY? If you already work a lot on your home, then you should be able to a tile, however, a mosaic is much harder to get right, so if you can afford it I say hire a professional.

Glass tile needs to be set with white thinset, not mastic, which is a favorite of DIY'ers because of the ease of use. Mastic yellows and shows through the glass tile.

Norm, curious... how hard is glass tile to cut?

Glass mosaic tile can be cut with a diamond blade in a wet saw, but larger glass tile, like glass subway tiles, can't be cut without chipping, even by a professional, so they can only be used for accent tiles unless you have a way to hide the edges. I recently discovered this after we bought 3 x 6 Daltile glass tiles for a mud room counter wrap around backsplash.

Yep. That's what I thought, and why I considered... but never attempted to do it myself. Laying it is pretty easy, it's the cutting that's the problem. Job for a pro, in my book.

I've never had any trouble cutting glass tiles with a wet saw. You just need a good wet saw. Rental saws may have warped blades, table out of adjustment, motor out of adjustment and so on. With a small mosaic it's a good idea to have a backer of some sort underneath it so the small pieces don't fall down into the groove of the saw table. Even a good snap cutter like a Rubi works well for larger glass tiles along with an abrasive stone to ease the edges.

@mpoulson, you may be providing a false sense of security with that comment. If i had never installed tile I wouldn't start off with glass tiles as they are not inexpensive. My point is, if you are not comfortable doing it, don't do it, correcting a flawed job is more expensive than hiring someone in the first place.

If in doubt bring in the professionals - tile is a pain to remove if it is not done right. Do it once, and do it right...

If we were going with ceramic, I would opt to do it ourselves. Friends of ours have experience and as well as the tools. The process looks fairly straight forward... But, glass is more expensive and appears trickier to work with so I'm leaning towards having it done right the first time by someone who knows what they're doing. We can afford a professional, so it will just push back our next project.

We have a new construction home and didn't pay the builder to customize everything (or much at all), so we're taking our time with each room/project. Its exciting (and overwhelming) having every room be a blank slate.

ok norm.....i just don't think it's that difficult to do, but i am a DIYer.

I agree with you, mpoulsom. Cutting tiles is not rocket science. I watched a guy put up my backsplash and tohought, wow, I could have done that. Bought myself a small $99 wet saw at Lowes (It was cheaper than renting for a few days, and the blade is brand new.) and did a bathroom floor. Then a backsplash. Then lent it to my firend and she used it.

Here is my suggestion wine and roses. Buy a sheet of the tiles. Take it home and play around with it seeing where you will need to make cuts etc. It may not even be that many. (Sometimes a whole row can be just cut away on the mesh and all you need is a straight cut on top or side.) Then, rent a wet saw for a day and cut up your tile sample. Then decide if you think it is too difficult. Using thinset is not that difficult, neither is grout.

I hope this has been resolved and the backspash being admired.

Glass does not cut the same as tile... and the smaller the tile the more I lean towards someone else installing it. (I hate cleaning grout off tile after grouting)

mpoulsom, I understand, I am in the same boat, handymam, I agree.... but. glass stuff shows through and it's often smaller bits than ceramics, takes a different adhesive, and glass is often quite pricy. If I'm paying $25 a square foot for glass, and running 20 feet of it, I might just have a pro install it. (see: I hate cleaning grout off stuff after grouting; and most glass tile has a LOT of little pieces to the square foot)

Definitely hire someone. You'll end up spending more time effort and money if a DIY job goes wrong