Glass tile in general is hard to work with for the inexperienced, and if you choose it, you will want to hire an experienced tile setter to install it. It sounds like your contractor is not up to the job, and kudos to him for saying so upfront.

I highly recommend waiting until your cabinets and counters are installed before committing to a bs tile. In the meantime, google your counter material and see what others have done with it. Collect inspiration images that you like, and go from there.

Your choices are lovely. Since I recently did my kitchen, so I share your backsplash pain. A couple of thoughts:

Grout samples of smaller tiles that you’re considering and see how you like the look before you commit. There was a mix of grey and white marble mosaics that I liked - until I saw a grouted sample.

The reason my contractor and I decided against arabesque is that the spaces between the tiles won’t be even - look very closely at example photos - so it would take a lot more work to do properly, especially since I wanted colored grout. The size of the tiles also varied slightly. Oddly, this was true even on large machine made arabesques. I didn’t want to spend the time and money on them.

After much searching, I have the spirit of arabesque (married to Mod?) in these Walker Zanger tiles, which I really like. I’m not suggesting these as an option for you - the colors are very limited - rather to give you ideas about alternatives to arabesque.

A - yes, I just saw those in another post and think they're *dreamy!!!* And actually, they'd go great with the dining set I'll eventually get, which will be 50s atomic style-ish. What color grout did you use for it? And - dare I ask the $ per sq ft?

Love your idea of looking at grouted samples - I have a bit of platinum (my fave grout color) laying around; I could test them out and see..

boxerpal - I think you could be right: I actually have a friend who's an amazing tiler.. I wonder if I could get him to do it? His wife, my bff, will be here tomorrow: I'll ask her ;)

I love the Walker Zanger tiles A has been posting.

I don't understand why you've chosen two quartz counters that are so similar. You need a white or light patterned quartz to coordinate with either of those samples. Otherwise just pick one to do all the counters. You've also got a solid gray floor so the speckled quartz is the best of the two.

The arabesque is no harder to install that the mesh backed strip mosaic. Tell your GC to find a better tiler.

I would suggest you wait till the space is finished to make a final decision on the back splash. Tiles can look very different once they are placed in the shadow of the upper cabinets.

Look at lots and lots of pictures of backsplashes with those narrow tiles. I think you can do much better. I agree that the 2 gray countertops are too similar. Both beautiful. Love the floor. Wait till everything is in place then choose the backsplash. See it in place in the house light. If you want arabesque get a better tiler. Have you seen how many arabesque backsplashes there are? So not terribly difficult for a good tiler.

Thanks for your input, everyone!

I have 2 gray countertops because the chairs for the peninsula will be sparkly (see "naugahide" sample in photos) and I don't want sparkly counters with sparkly chairs. I also don't want white counters with white cabinets (gray peninsula would have been better - but Ikea doesn't offer those any more in the line I bought), so gray it is. Plus, I love gray; plus, Iove that they're the same color as the counters, just without sparkle. I also don't like marble-look counters; I prefer (what to me is) cohesion, so I prioritized that in my choices. ;)