Hey Lenore,

There are a couple things you can do to get the distressed look on your backsplash.

1. for a light distressed look take an orbital sander with a heavy grit sand paper (20 grit) and run the sander over the brick. This gives it the appearance of a weathered heritage look.

2. If you want it to look like something that just came out of the rock quarry then take a grinder with a diamond polish wheel. Careful with this technique as it will literally take pieces out of the stone

Hope this helps

Awesome! Thanks so much to both of you. Truly appreciate it :)

I know painting brick bothers some folks, but it works very well.

Starting with a white/off-white base and antiquing the finish would work nicely.

If you decide to give it a go, I suggest using block filler as primer first. I will save a lot of time.