Jessrae,

Okay, which question to answer first! :)

When I looked at your pictures, what struck me is that you have are a light color and dark colors but nothing in between. And your light color doesn't look like it has enough umph to offset your darks. Your tile square selection to me looks too similar to your cabinet color tho it does work well with your countertop color.

If you are committed to these backsplash tiles already, then I would do a paint color that is either opposite on the color wheel, something in greens, or pick a paint color that is in the same family as your cabinets like deep mauve or something in the red violet family or possibly a very warm brown that is in the same tonal range as your cabinets or countertops but is a few steps up from white.

I actually like your floor sample. Will help to hide dirt! ;) But since that will be a large visual part of your kitchen I would look to bringing in another color, say a green, to help break up the browns and white you have so far.

Pick your paint color possibilities and put them on the wall so you can see them in your light. It is amazing what a difference light makes!

And yes, most of us stress about all of this for all of the same reasons. If you haven't heard from anyone else, try doing a bump or second request to your email, so that other TKO designers can see it. The forum seems to be moving fast this week!

Earth pal - Thank you so much for all your helpful advice. I'm not committed to these tiles and will be doing some more looking around this weekend. We'll see if I can find something with more umph. Thanks again!!

jessrae, as a BA owner I would like to suggest you forget about the backsplash for now. You need to see your BA installed and see how it feels. You can't just go by "color" with this granite/backsplash.

I found the BA to be busy and didn't want things to compete with it, thus I ruled out any mosaic tile. I also thought about the long skinny tiles too but really didn't like the busy-ness of it when I held it up on the wall.

I ended up going with something I had never even seen (and because I won it in a contest and it worked for me and my cabinets and the overall feel of the kitchen).

So, I suggest you just wait. There are so many colors that work with this granite--brown, taupe, gray, pear green, silver/blue....and on and on it goes.

Best of luck to you, and can't wait to see pictures.

Great point Beekeeperswife. I'm not planning on making a final decision on the backsplash until the cabinets and BA are installed. Unfortunately we've been told it'll take 4 weeks following the cabinet installation until the countertop goes in. So I was hoping to at least have a good idea of what might work so that I'm not the hold up. Plus they want me to paint prior to the install. Of course, if I pick a bad choice of paint I can easily fix that after the install.

Hey Jessare,

You are most welcome! I had forgotten to look at the BA before writing my earlier comments. For some reason I thought that was your floor sample, whoops!

I agree with Beekeeperswife's suggestions about the backsplash after looking at a BA sample. Our countertop is a recycled glass countertop in aquas and I kept designing all of these complicated backsplash patterns that DH, our KD and ID kept saying SIMPLIFY to. I thought they were nuts. Now that it is in, I am very grateful that I did listen to them and designed something simple and elegant to complement the countertop. I am pretty confident you will be in the same situation once your BA is installed.

Hmm.. taupe and pear green sound good to me for paint colors, depending on your color preferences of course! I was at West Elm store yesterday and the colors were interesting. A pear or grass green was coming in for spring, along with a deep sunset coral and a light amethyst/grape was straddling spring/summer according to staff. For color inspiration take a look at what the following stores are showing for combinations.... West Elm, Crate and Barrel, Ikea, EQ3, and I can't remember the other one that I look at. These are more modern in design but still good for color.

Good luck this weekend in shopping, I mean looking at tiles!