All I can say is that simple tiles with an organic/rustic shape wouldn't distract from your beautiful granite, but add to it!

Hi mythreesonsnc,

Your kitchen looks beautiful. I'm not an expert, but when I look at your creamy cabinets, with darker floors, I'm picturing a backsplash that is a little darker than the cabinet color - maybe something that picks up the mid-range tones in your granite. Personally I prefer the natural materials - like the travertine, marble or limestone, but that's just me.

Since your space is large, with high ceilings, I would find a larger tile more "soothing" than the smaller sizes - it's just less busy looking when you step back to see the whole thing. If it were my kitchen, I would get a few pieces of each of the tiles you are considering, and try putting them in the space - then step back and see which ones you like best. It would be great if you had a small piece of the granite there to help visualize. I think any of your ideas would work well - it's just a question of which you like best.

Good Luck - whatever you decide will look great!

Everything you picked so far looks great ( I LOVE YOUR ISLAND TOP!!!)

Thanks all for the input. Think largish tiles might be the way to go. I'm going to try to get some pics with them in the space and see if that helps. Maybe I can get some votes on different looks!

I think tiles set in a herringbone pattern would play off the shape of the ceiling and the beams.

The herringbone idea is a really intriguing one.... I have never once thought of that, but it could be cool... though it might draw more attention to the backsplash.

Here are a couple of shots of possibilities so far....
Travertine 3x6:

Tumbled marble: 2x4: (same as cali_wendy)

Porcelain biscuit 4x8:

Porcelain biscuit 3x6:

Crema Marfil 3x6:

Closer pic of crema marfil veining:

I have the honed crema marfil. I didn't like the smaller ones, so my contractor cut 12x12s into 3x12s. Here's a pic. Bigger may be better for you with your very large kitchen!

I think the crema marfil shown in your last pic is THE one! And bigger is better for your space, i like Marcydc's 3x12 too.

Of course, this comes from someone who can't decide on what to use for her own backsplash.

If you can find whatever you choose with a beveled edge, I think it would look great. With a beveled edge, you get a lot of sparkle from the lighting and I think it would look really nice with your granite. It seems to be a relative to Bianco Antico. My beveled arabesques have such a subtle sparkle due to not being flat, and I think it is a quiet nod to the granite's crystals.

Your kitchen is incredible. Cannot wait to see it finished. (something you must be saying a lot)

Beautiful kitchen. My vote is the crema marfil. second choice is the tumbled marble.

First of all, love your kitchen! I'm jealous of your beams. Our ceilings are fairly high also, but we weren't blessed with the peak being right in the middle like yours.

We appear to have a similar cabinet color, although I think ours appears to be more yellow. I think I like the crema marfil the best in your kitchen. We ended up using a silvery slate (I believe it is actually a quartzite) which we cut in 4 x 12s. Love the bigger tile idea. You have a large space and I think a smaller tile might look kind of lost.

Good luck!

I also love the last choice- the crema marfil. I think it highlights and accentuates your beautiful granite perfectly. The kitchen looks great. Can't wait for the big reveal!

I also like the crema marfil for you with the porcelain in second place.

I agree, with all that wall space, a bigger tile would be better.

I think Crema Marfil seems to be the top choice, which is what I thought as well -- and my husband too (shocking). Seeing your kitchen again Marcydc sealed it for us because your backsplash is so beautiful. Thank you for posting again! Is a a nightmare to clean though?

Thanks again for all of the help. It is starting to come together, and is finally looking like a house. Today painters were there working and seeing the trim painted and some walls painted makes such a difference! Tomorrow my plumbing arrives, so that will be really exciting! I think my kitchen will be "reveal" ready in a month or so. I am excited, though still a zillion details to work out. The info on this forum has been completely invaluable. So happy to have found it several years ago! Now to complete the hardware. Who knew the crazy expense of outfitting an entire new build, ugh!

kitcheaddict has a beautiful crema marfil backsplash if you want to see another one in action. Look for hers here too!

No! It is so totally NOT a nightmare to clean! Everything wipes off. It was sealed of course. My husband likes to make a huge mess . Especially now that he has a real hood with good airflow and can fry and saute his heart out!

This is completely off topic but can you tell me about your beams? I'm supposed to be choosing between wood beams/columns and painted for our build (non-vaulted ceilings though). What kind did you go with and do you happen to know the cost difference between what you went with and painted? I haven't ventured into that area yet but any information I can get would be helpful. I'm discovering that the more photos I see with wood beams, the more I fall in love with them. I just don't want them to be a budget buster. Thanks so much!

I think your granite has enough movement so I guess I am in the minority and would not choose the crema marfil (sorry) and instead go with the more plain ceramic and like the more rounded corners of the 3x6s with your more traditional scheme, the more squarish (new word?) look more comtemporary. If you are having trouble finding the perfect cream you may want to try Ann Sacks Elements, page 8 of 8 of her colors has a huge "white pallete" where I am sure you are to find the perfect match. There is my two cents! :)
But everything looks beautiful thus far!

Here is a link that might be useful: Ann Sacks

I'd go with the tumbled marble, but with larger tiles.

The place looks great.

Hi Babs, wanted to attempt to answer your beams question. We went back and forth on this quite a bit and my house has beams in several different locations and they are all different. First, I had my heart set on antique beams. They were beautiful, had a great "patina" and were really cool! But, the price for those was out of control. They were typically made of heart pine, or another type of 'softwood," hardwood beams are hard to find and are prohibitively expensive! Then you can go down to a beam purchased from your lumber store --- they make up to a 12x12 size and pretty long lengths. These can be a variety of woods, like pine or western red cedar. You can stain them. I even got some samples and banged on them with chains and a hammer and they looked "old". Then another option is to create box beams, which is a four pieces of wood joined to make a hollow box. The antique beam companies will also do this with antique boards. They are pretty inexpensive, though they are more complicated to engineer / build so that adds a small expense. The ones on my ceiling in this kitchen area are box beams. I had some structural steel beams that we were able to wrap this way and make them part of the design. That was for the ridge beam. The rest could have been solid, which annoyed me a bit that they weren't. I know that very commonly the box beam is created if it is going to be painted and that is a great look. I'm worried about how mine will turn out stained, but guess we can always paint them if it looks terrible. The last option I used was to source my own antique beams (I did this in my living room).

I went on craigslist and found some that a guy tore out of an old barn in the mountains. I bought 4 beams, each 18' long and a super cool mantel (not up in this picture) they are really neat for about $400. That was a fraction of the $10,000 quote I had to purchase them from an antique beam company.

From a pricing point of view, you can do wood beams, like a western red cedar pretty inexpensively. We did lots of painted columns in the house as well, and the trim work was more involved vs. plopping a beam into place! If you want pictures of painted columns, I'd be happy to post those too. In looking at it we are a "wood beam, painted column kind of house"..... Hope that combo works out ok!

First of all .. swoon over your ceiling!!! :D they are fantastic!!!!

The kitchen looks fantastic!
And without a doubt for me .. the Crema Marfil 3x6: .... they sink right in and look very calm. love it!

Thank you for your thorough answer! I'd LOVE to see more pics of the painted and stained together...or apart...any and all! The more the merrier! Any visual helps me make my decision. You are so sweet to help me out when I hijacked your thread with the beam/column talk! LOL!

I adore your beautiful kitchen already! I love the color combinations and am choosing cream cabinets myself. I think the creamy white and walnut etc. is such a classic look. Ok, I am also one of the minority. I like the travertine for the extra layer of texture it would seem to give. Major caveat: I DO NOT consider myself as having a good eye!

bump

Hi all,

Thanks so much for the help deciding on a backsplash. The space is small, and seems relatively unimportant, at least to my husband! They all looked the same to him! The winner ended up being crema marfil 3x6, thanks marcydc for your pics, and also to cali_wendy for source info. I think it was the right way to go, I really like it, just can't wait to get the floors done, and the last details and then we get to finally use it, hooray! Here are a couple of pics, thanks again for the help all, you are great and I really appreciate it!

Just stunning! As you know, this will be my backsplash as well - can't wait. I see you mentioned using cool tiles in another thread. Did you compare their tiles to the 3 x 6 creama marfil's at Home Depot? That is where I got a few samples, but would consider ordering elsewhere if the quality was better.

Also - do you know the name of the grout color?
Thanks!

Love the backsplash (and the whole thing, really). Can you share your source for the 3 x 6 tiles?

Thanks!

It's official! I have turned green. Gorgeous! I am sorry, I meant GORGEOUS!

Beautiful kitchen! I sooo need help with backsplash and I can't get my pictures up... Can someone please tell me how to put a picture on here from my desktop... Thanks!

Sorry it took me a while.... I'm just now seeing this thread pop-up again!

The tiles are honed 3x6 crema marfil from Cooltiles.com. I never did see the Home Depot ones, so I can't comment on the quality difference. My tile guys said some of the cooltiles ones were not uniformly thick, so they did have to weed a few out. Colorado mom, have you completed yours? My other observation is in comparison to some of the crema marfil in the tile stores --- The cool tiles batch was lighter than many of the others, and it worked great for me, but it all depends on what you need! The grout was Bone.

What is the paint color of the cabinets? They are beautiful!