Stainless Steel behind the stove and then tile to either side. That way you both get what you want. FYI... look into epoxy grouts. Harder to apply but they won't stain.

hi arlo..

I had to respond because I too hate dirty grout..I no longer will put tile on my floors because of grout.

I have only had my tumbled marble backsplash for a year, but I just don't think there is the same issue with it getting dirty since it is on a vertical plane.

My old kitchen had painted wall behind the stove, and that didn't work out too well at all. It was difficult to wipe down. I would never go with just paint again.

I sealed my backsplash with 511...wipe on wipe off..easy peasy..and plan on doing it again just to be on the safe side. So far, behind the stove looks just as good as 1 year ago..

but, it's only been 1 year...

KA:)

epoxy grout is the highest quality kind of smooth impervious surface you could ever imagine.
Many DIY find working with epoxy grout to be easy.

There are other kinds of grout, and additives that you add to make grout great.
GroutBoost is one, which makes white grout very very white and impervious too.

So, you have lots of options.

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But, you might not have seen any of these in real life yet.

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we're going with glass. it's two pieces of glass with laminate in between so it's sort of frosted. it sort of looks greenish but it'd be easy enough to paint the wall behind it something that would take away from that. in my case, I have bm palladian blue on the wall which will work just perfectly since it's greenish. It's going to be in three pieces, and there will be a seam but I'm not sure what that seam is made of. They're going to come in and template Monday, I can report back then.

Sounds beautiful!

Thank you to everyone for your comments. I'm a little less fearful of grout now. However, I like the idea of glass over a painted wall, although I can't exactly picture what you're describing, summersucks, so would eventually love to see a photo. But the concept of glass sounds nice. And easy to clean! And tile on either side above counter areas. Something definitely to consider!

Arlo

Daki put a slab of the granite used on the countertop behind the stove. Although I love subways, I have the same grout concerns, plus I'm all about minimizing cleaning. I bookmarked Daki's kitchen because I think it's a great alternative to tile.

Here is a link that might be useful: Daki's kitchen

Remodelepha suggests a stainless steel backsplash which is what we plan to do; any body have places they've gotten them? I found some on line; the ones that come with the range seems overpriced...

thanks boxerpups, I'm hoping ours looks half as nice! They came today, it's going to be siliconed, into place and in the 'seams'. I hope it's a good decision, I fear grout because I am a total slob and am hoping this will clean easily.

swisscook if you're cool with just a piece of stainless cut to size I'd recommend calling a few metal fabricators and getting some quotes. Make sure you specify the gauge and whether you want brushed or not. I got huge ranges in prices when I called around and wound up getting a steal of a deal on all of our custom stainless stuff.

Any part time welder can make a flat panel for you. There may not be anything to weld. They know where to buy it, how to cut it safely, where to put support so it won't look warped when it's installed, how to polish it to the surface quality you thought you wanted, and a lot more than that. There might be a hundred local guys who love to weld, have big welding machines in their home garage or basement, and are wiling to take on any project they want, at any price. At one steel supply house I know, hundreds of business cards are posted. They are all one-man operations or the semantic equivalent of that. So, if you have no idea how to find these guys, use your yellow pages or web searching skills to get to the steel wholesalers and drop in to see who is on their wall.

Hth

I've seen all sorts of nice tile backsplash designs, but we went with a simple quilted stainless steel -- not for everybody, I reckon, but we're happy with the appearance, it's a snap to clean and it was easy and inexpensive. Ours came from a company called Frigo Design via the way exclusive Home Depot, which carries a bunch of their stock options on the web site (brushed, hammered, quilted, etc.) in basic sizes like 30" x 36" (also have copper, for that matter). The piece arrived nicely packed, well finished, in something like 2-3 days. Shipping was free, I think -- the whole thing, with the recommended adhesive, was less than 200 bucks to our door. I contacted the company directly to ask about some options -- got the impression they'd do nearly anything custom if you're not happy with the stock offerings or sizes.

Hello, for stainless steel backsplash just go to any metal shop. Had my back splash and kick boards done years ago.