love your countertop and also the color of your chairs!

Since you asked...lol New light fixture and remove everything on top of the cabinets.

This dilemma comes up frequently. There are two schools of thought, one is Sammy's suggestion. The other is to line up the backsplash with the upper cabinets, not the counter top. My very experienced and competent tile man does it the second way, which avoids that right angle of tile hanging out in the middle of nowhere.

And you probably should remove the phone jack unless you use a land line.

This is how we ended ours.

IF you need the phone jack, replace it with a white one. All outlet covers should match the counter or the wall color. I like a backsplash up to the upper cabinet, and ending where the counter ends.

Thanks all for the advice! I appreciate all of it!

we def plan to remove the phone jack and intend to change up lighting.

I think you have received advice I was going to post. Especially removing all that "stuff" above cabinets and of course re tile - keep it simple. Post when done pls. We always like to see end results!

I’m stumped on that cabinet to right of stove. If BS lines up with upper cabinet you’ll have just a sliver of BS there & since stove has high back won’t see much there either. At the bar end, the counter extends quite a bit past end of cabinet. What do the experts say about tiling to end of counters and also to ceiling in this particular situation? Does the color choice of grey grout matter? Regardless of thoughts on where to end BS, my vote is for grout to match tile. I think the countertops have enough going that they should be the star & focus. Colored grout would close up the space & make things too busy - for me!

There's a third option...a waterfall effect.