I vote for dh's 1st tile pick, and the middle, second column with the bleached white crackle tile.

Btw scout, kitchen looks very nice. That granite is amazing. What company makes the two I chose? I am looking also and open to new possibilities.

I like the far left, far right and middle right tiles best: Charcoal Grey Crackle Old World, Light Aspen Grey Crackle and Bleach White Crackle with grey veins. And maybe Blue Frost Matte (bottom right).

The 2nd and 4th tiles on my list look like they compliment your wall color quite nicely. That's what I did in my kitchen. I love the tone on tone texture.

Your kitchen looks amazing!

My granite is a little yours. We went with polished crema marfil subway.

Either the gray or white works. If you're keeping the paint color, I'd use the white, though I like the gray better.

Take the subway ceramics off their backers, they will look different and you'll a better idea of their color. We have their satin white subway tile and love it.

The rectified/flat edges give a very nice and even look to the backsplash. It lets the tile speak for itself and doesn't take anything away from the counters without disagreeing.

designsavvy - thanks for the compliments! The 2 tiles you liked are both from Complete Tile Collection. They are the Vermeere Ceramics line. http://www.completetile.com/products/ceramic/vermeere_ceramics

lisa_a - I do really like the tone on tone in your kitchen! Thank you for the feedback. The blue matte is growing on me too but the Light Aspen Grey has my front runner so far. Thank you for the complement on the kitchen!

aktillery9- I had a little argument earlier with DH because he is convinced we have the same granite as you, lol. He will be glad to hear you agree that it's similar! I was originally looking at polished marble subways like yours but then I fell for crackle tile. Your backsplash makes me reconsider, though. It's stunning!

mayflowers - the paint color is staying. it's BM Silver Ice.

bananasuit- I don't know why I didn't think of that. I will pull them off the cards. I definitely want something that won't detract from or compete with the granite.

Haven't read the other posts so my opinion isn't swayed.

for me :-

heather grey crackle

Light aspen grey crackle

Bleach white crackle with grey veins

and lastly blue frost

your kitchen is gorgeous!

I like the first and the last. The two middle not at all with your granite - they look blue.

That's our backsplash. we have soapstone with a lot of subtle depth and detail (that doesn't photography easily) so we wanted something simple. Their satin tile also feels amazing in person and has a great texture.

we have a sample of celadon green I could see working well in your space.

I am with Carrie B. In the first picture, the first sample is the best and the last is next best. the middle two look too cool for the granite.

I love that Old World Vermeer Crackle with your stone. The subtle blackish veins compliment your busy granite wonderfully. If you can, run up to the NYC store front: it's quite a force in itself. Can't wait to see your backsplash installed. Wonderful kitchen!

This is great feedback, thank you all! I'm glad to hear so much love for the Old World charcoal grey.

avamom2012 - I wish I could do that but I'm in Utah! My mom still lives in my hometown in Northern NJ, though, and if our next trip out there was sooner than June I would be buying in person!

I like them all. I guess maybe the Aspen the best. They are great tiles. Can you tell me approx how much per square foot? I may need to check them out.

I'm pretty much with the majority - the Vermeere Aspen & Charcoal Grey Old World. How do these look against your white cabinetry? I also love the Sweet Bluette but is there any blue in your countertops?

Can you take a few pictured of the first and last only? Some photos w/ the granite, some showing the cabinets, etc.

I'm using a grey motled granite, "touch of grey" paint, cherry stained cabinets and floor...then ....I like the "polished crema marfil" subway. The grey is too dark and there's too much grey going on already. IMO The backsplash needs to lighten up....reflect the under cabinet lighting. Grey can become dull and dreary.

I will take a few more photos in the morning, Carrie!

kelleg69 - The quote i got was originally only for Sweet Bluette and one other color and each was $19.76 per sq foot. I need to double check but I'm guessing the other crackle colors are the same price.

romy - no there really isn't any blue in my counters!

Hi Scout! Just wanted to pop in and compliment your lovely kitchen! Are we going to get a big REVEAL when all is said and done? I'd love to see a lot more pictures! :-)

Well, it is always impossible to judge color on the internet, but here goes!

In this picture:

I like the two middle tiles by themselves and am usually all about color, but I don't think outright blue relates well to your granite at all. I'd say a definite no on both of those.

The whitest one (on the far left) matches your granite best of all, hands down, but it doesn't have much to do with the wall color. It doesn't clash, but they aren't the kind of neighbors that trade house keys and gossip over coffee.

The one on the far right is doing the best job here of relating to both the granite and the wall color simultaneously, and I really like the softer effect of the tone on tone. However, the undertones in that tile seem slightly slightly off. It's not QUITE the right shade, but I can see how something very very similar would be absolutely perfect.

In your shoes, I'd keep the far left tile as a very nice Plan B and then take the far right tile and get as many samples that are almost exactly the same shade as that one as I can find. See if any one is just slightly different enough to be perfect.

In this picture:

I like the dark one in the middle of the left column. I'd be interested to see it removed from its backer and placed against the granite and wall like the other image I posted in this comment.

I don't usually advocate for dark, but in this case, I think youur kitchen is light and airy enough to allow it, and the lighter and darker areas in the tile looks nice with the granite. That tile also seems as if it might nicely tie the perimeter to the darker island cabinets and chairs.

A gray could bring out the blue in the paint. Did you mean it's BM Iced Cube Silver? There's no Silver Ice on their website. BM may even put a touch of lavender in their silver colors. I have Silver Mist and I can see that slight lavender at times.

I looked at the tiles on my tablet, which shows the color better, and I like the Charcoal Grey Crackle Old World. The gray wasn't really showing up on my laptop monitor, which is why I called it white. I like how the gray gives it a little depth. A solid white would be too much white.

I like the dark grey and dark blue ones you already ruled out, but they won't be quite as quiet and peaceful as the ones you're still considering.

A gray could bring out the blue in the paint. Did you mean it's BM Iced
Cube Silver? There's no Silver Ice on their website. BM may even put a
touch of lavender in their silver colors. I have Silver Mist and I can
see that slight lavender at times.

Oops, sorry. It's BM Silver LAKE. I was a little brain dead yesterday. There is definitely quite a bit of blue in the color, which is why I love it!

We had a late night letting the kids watch Star Wars Episode IV for the first time and then DS2's new speech therapist just left. Off to take a few more pictures!

I love to recommend tiles - I dont want to unnecessarily complicate your wonderful choices or blow your budget. There is one tile that comes to mind though, could be perfect for your stone. This is Fireclay Tile's Foggy Morning with Black Patine. It is almost twice as expensive as the tile you're looking at, available in different sizes and shapes. Of your original choices, I really like the charcoal grey crackle tile. You can't go wrong with any of them.

Here is the Vermeere Charcoal Grey Crackle Old World:

Funny that it looks so off white here. My cabinets are pretty darn white!:

The Subway Ceramics Heather Grey:

And the Light Aspen Grey:

I'm out of pictures for this post so I will add the Sky Blue in the next one.

Subway Ceramics Sky Blue:

A better view of the granite:

And I do plan to start a reveal thread when we finally get the last details done. I found the perfect buffet yesterday for the dining area and then was crushed when the person who agreed to sell it to me ended up selling to someone else who offered her $20 more. I'm still seething about it.

You're granite slab is just beautiful. What a piece of art. When looking at that with your tiles, the Subway Ceramics Heather Grey does seem to go very well with it and it has nice variation per tile. I can't tell if the Old World is cream (computer color issues) but if it is and cabinets are a starker white, I'd shy away from it too.

One thought about blue tiles: most either like them or they don't. When I was in NYC, Tile Collection suggested a blue also so I brought a sample home and placed it in my stark white cabinet kitchen. I doesn't do it for me though. I actually prefer a white or a gray (still ABB) and to keep my consistency of 3 repeat colors room to room.

I think there's too much blue in the Heather Gray when against the wall, which is what matters. It looks nice flat though. I'd want more samples of the Vermeere crackle tiles to see the variation. Did you get their samples online or from a tile store? I have a photo in my Ideabook of a kitchen with them and might order samples.

I like how the Heather Grey looks with both your white cabinets and your granite but it does look blue against the wall.

The Light Aspen Grey looks better against your cabinets than the Charcoal Grey.

I just started looking at Vermeere photos on Houzz. I think this is one of Kompy's kitchens. I've already forgotten the name for this Vermeere color, but it gives you an idea about how a darker colored tile will look.

edit : changed to Kompy, not LWO. Color is Light Ocean Breeze

Just posting for fun - here's your Sweet Bluette

One more picture of Vermeere. This isvnot the right color tone (it looks Green) for your kitchen. What I like about it is the amount of color saturation. It's not as dark as Subway Ceramics Heather Grey but is darker than Light Aspen Grey.

Thanks for the input Romy! That helps a lot. That Sound Road kitchen with the Sweet Bluette backsplash is the one I fell in love with!

The picture of the kitchen Kompy did above helps a lot to see the contrast of a darker tile. I like it a lot!

mayflowers - I ordered the samples online from Complete Tile directly. The Heather Grey does look too blue against the wall in that picture.

Avamom - Thanks, I really love our granite too. And I agree about the blue. We don't plan to sell ever so in theory only I have to love it, but you never know what the future holds!

Your granite is very much like ours, which is Silver Cloud. We're also doing the BS thing at the the moment, hemming and hawing about the various whites, blues, and grays. One difference is that our cabinets are a slightly yellow-white (white chocolate) so we need to bridge the whiter white in the granite with the yellower white of the cabinet. The small rectangle on top is a piece of cabinet.

A close-up of the "Creamy Crackle" by Sonoma Tile

And in place
We love the white and and will use that in the 4x12 size, but we also like the idea of using a blue/gray (that tile really is blue/gray vs gray with a hint of blue-see above), but perhaps in a lighter shade. Maybe a row of blue one row down from the top?

Suzanne_sl - Silver Cloud and Viscont White are the same stone! Yours is lovely too. I will check out Sonoma Tile too. I like the Creamy Crackle with your cabinets. I think it's a good bridge between them and the counters.

Wow Kelly, you sure know how to make a girl blush! Your comments are very, very kind. I'm especially glad to hear that you think I did well on the lighting. I'm actually a theatrical lighting designer and lighting was one thing that was very important to me on this remodel. This was a remodel on a budget but we still wanted it to look great, so it's nice to hear that we made good choices.

I hadn't seen that study before but it actually makes a great deal of sense. I remember when I was getting my theatre degree they remodeled the dining hall in the student union and they has spec'ed the wrong color temperature lamps for the area where the hot food was being served. The food looked insanely unappetizing. At the time, my lighting professor had just become the dean of the college and they brought him in to fix the issue. He used it as an object lesson for our class.

Thank you so much for the compliments and your feedback on the tile choices!

eam44 - I forgot to comment earlier. I love those Fireclay tiles, but alas I am already pushing the budget with these choices. I'd better not get carried away!

I've been sick for the past 3 weeks but did manage to order another time sample :)

This is MSI Morning Fog from Home Depot. I think I like that this falls between the Heather Gray and the LT Aspen Gray pictured above.

like heather gray or sky blue...prefer more intense backsplash in this kitchen.......don't like the paler choices.....[blue-gray] seems your "color" of choice, which is fine.....you must like it.....just think the scale of everything warrants the pop of little more intense shading at your backsplash.