The backsplash is the last piece of our DIY kitchen redo, and we're indecisive. Would love to hear some thoughts. Warning, janky photoshoppery -- and far too many words, pictures, and overthinking -- lie ahead...

First, I suppose I should set the scene? The house is a 1976 PNWonderland rambler, on a .3 acre urban[ish] almost-homestead. We the residents are a young and growing (read: two under age 4) family with a casual, function-above-all-else-but-loving-fun-and-thoughtful-details tendency toward our home who expect to be here for four more years, and then will sell and move far, far away. The kitchen is in the front of the south-facing house, heavily shaded by trees and porch overhang.

(1)

Here is our workspace as it currently is. The other part of the kitchen that will get a backsplash is directly behind the photographer, including a large wall with an approximately-centered window and sink -- counter is the same white quartz as on the small triangle cabinet to left of the stove -- it's nothing remarkable and is not imposing any design constraints, which is why I'm focusing on the stove wall. Nothing you see there is changing -- that is our stove, our hood, our cabinets (tiny one has to be tiny to allow enough space in front of the just-out-of-frame fridge enclosure to pass into the adjacent, barely visible hallway), our counters (quartz and a GORGEOUS custom end-grain butcher block). Pots have to be stored there.

(2)

After [my previous post[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/kitchen-backsplash-height-conundrum-dsvw-vd~5021011), this is nominally what I was planning to do. I like the idea of bringing the backsplash all the way to the ceiling, but the asymmetries were giving me headaches until a recent revelation that, if extended all the way to the corner of the wall, the hood & range were *close enough* to being centered that it didn't drive me nuts.

(3)

But you know what? That pot rack is problematic. It needs to be mounted into studs, but its braces don't match the stud spacing, so we have it mounted onto a kind of ledger board and *that* is attached to studs (see first two pictures). And while supremely functional (and I'm weirdly sentimental about it), I wouldn't mind something more attractive. Also, still not entirely thrilled about the asymmetry. But I've seen pictures I like of shelves wrapping the chimney of a hood...

(4)

(Pretend the metal pot rack isn't there anymore, I just couldn't convincingly edit it out, pots would sit on the shelf.) I like this. This might be a winner. But I also fell in love with a tile border that we think we maybe want to incorporate...

(5)

Yeah, here's where the photoshoppery gets really weird. But if you squint and ignore the (really lovely, actually) sink, what about the subway tile up to the border, and our 4" hex tiles above?

But a lot of that hex tile gets covered by the stuff on the shelf, and I'm far more interested in the hex tiles than the subway...would it be weird to have the hex tiles below, and subway above?

(6)

I don't know on this one. Seems like the scale is a little off, that with a 3x6 or 4x8 subway tile, since it's bigger in at least one dimension it ought go below the accent mosaic, with the smaller 4" hexes going above. I don't know.

And what if this is just too many different tiles?

(7)

What if we just do hex tile, top to bottom, with the accent running through the middle?

If you've stuck with me this far, thank you! Please give me your thoughts. It's been fun playing paper dolls with all of these options, but I think I'm in analysis paralysis.

TL;DR -- barring the photo-editing atrocities, which picture do you like better?