Hi there. I would tile out to the depth of your upper cabinets. To make the rest of that wall easier to clean, paint it with an oil or alkyd interior paint. Actually, a really good latex would probably be fine as well.

I know you aren’t asking about this, but reconsider your tile choice. The mosaic means a lot of grout, and glass tile is not what I would choose for your really cute space. Good luck!

@eam44 When you say to the depth of the upper cabinets, what do you mean? Which color is that? Lol - sorry - I am totally spatially challenged so I was hoping the colored lines might be a useful point of reference. A pretty good latex paint is what's on there, no impossible to clean, just not my favorite thing to deal with. Also, totally open to other tile recs. No clue what I'm doing! Only issue is, have to decide like .... soon. This week. Thank you for help!!!

Hi Laura. There’s a lot of drawing on that image already, but what I’m recommending is that you tile from below your microwave down along the window wall. You can stop just below your range top. Vertical red line.

None of these options is wrong. It’s a matter of personal preference. If you want tile along the whole wall, go for it.

Can you tell me about your floor? Is it tile or is it vinyl? I would choose a ceramic tile that makes reference to the white in your cabinets, or to colors in the floor, depending on what they are.

@eam44 Oh!!! I see what you're saying. Wow I hadn't even considered that option. Interesting! That actually sort of makes sense to me. Thank you!

The floor is tile. Thanks for the rec -- one thing I was agonizing over is SIZE of tile. As you can see, I'm not tiling a very large space .And whenever I went to search for a particular size or color, I'd get lost in not knowing what size I wanted. Any recs there?

You know, I love the look of a long format tile in a smaller space. It’s really cute. A 3” x 12” tile would look nice, but look for inspiration images of kitchens with white cabinets and black counters and see what looks pretty to you.

@eam44 I *do* like that, thank you! You know what, though? I went back and looked at what it would look like to tile just to the depth of the microwave and now I'm worried that that won't be functional enough.

If you look at the picture, the microwave comes out barely to the end of the back burners - meaning tile at that depth would leave the front burners (which, realistically, I use the most) with no coverage.

Thoughts?

@eam44 Ooooh -- I was able to find pictures of similar kitchen layouts (real estate listings in my apartment building!) and have some visuals. Although I don't love the gray tile if I didn't know any better it might not bother me.

Conversely, the picture with the entire wall tiled actually feels a bit... much.... for me. It also raises the question in my mind of whether or not I'd also have to tile the whole damn kitchen the way that they have.

I like the idea of tiling the window wall. Since the fridge is against the wall on the other side of the aisle, I don't think you'd need to tile the fridge wall--it kind of stops the expectation that the tile should continue. Your example is different because one can see the corner where the third wall begins.

@eam44 Circling back to say thank you-- thing I'm gonna go with 3x12 or 4x12 white ceramic subway tile. The last question is: what grout? Thoughts? Thank you!

@laurenjardinera, you’re welcome. I’m sorry I missed your other posts.

If you want to see the grout, use a light gray or silver. If you don’t want to see it, use white. You can see examples of both in the images above. Gray grout will look busier.

That gas stove next to a wall (if it's a combustible wall) looks like a fire hazard to me. And placing a noncombustible tile over a combustible wall does not make the wall noncombustible according to the NFPA.

5 years later to the party, but step the tiles from the upper cabinet down to the front of the stove.

Do double tile up the front of the stove to catch as much slop as possible, then double tile down to match, then split the difference inbetween.

Crud picture to go you a idea.

I think it looks better than a square jut on the wall.

It would of course look better evenly stepped and maybe come out further and take to the floor.