you could get ceramic tile that would mimic beadboard

same look - a lot easier to clean

Safe? Yes, as long as you are not using a regular plain slide-in kind of range. Note the 4" riser/vent at the back of Pirula's range. Any range that has at least a 4" high backsplash on it can go directly against the wall and will be fine from a code and safety standpoint. With your cooktop, it will be a little different. Some makers (such as Blue Star) require 6" of horizontal clearance for their units, but Miele is designed to require less. So, as long as you maintain the requisite 2.75" clearance for the Miele, there will not be a safety issue.

Beyond that, I'm very much with akchicago on cleaning the thing. I speak from experience. A couple of decades ago, I had an old-house kitchen with beadboard backsplash. I'm a messy cook. I found it hard to maintain the beadboard without frequent touch-up on the paint. I never found a paint that was tough enough to hold up for any length of time.

If you really like the look of the beadboard, I suppose you could consider overlaying it with a clear tempered glass panel. That would allow the beadboard pattern to show through and would be much easier to clean. (I've done something like this behind my stove in my current house, although my wall is just plain painted drywall, The tempered glass panel was inexpensive. The most expensive part was having holes drilled in the glass for the mounting screws.).

This post was edited by JWVideo on Thu, Jan 22, 15 at 18:02

Our vacation house had tempered glass screwed over a wallpaper backsplash. The glass was just behind the sink and the cooktop. I always meant to replace it, but never got round to it, and it held up beautifully. The wallpaper looked like a true paper, too, not vinyl. We had the house at least ten years, and cooked in it frequently. I think glass is an underrated option.

It's probably safe at the recommended clearance, but that doesn't mean that the paint on the beadboard won't still scorch. The same with the uppers. I see this a lot from people who put wood hoods the same size (instead of lager) over their range below. Even at the recommended distance to be fire safe, the paint's integrity is still affected.

In my town that is against code.

Thank you, everyone!