Given the other pictures, a non-porous stacked stone that blends with the fireplace could look good.

Pic #2 - closer view of Silestone Kimbler counter.

This post was edited by romy718 on Mon, Aug 18, 14 at 17:38

Pic #3 - "Kitchen flows into great room. Our style is simple, rustic. Any ideas?"

Thanks Lazygardens,
I was thinking of that too, but I've only found stacked stone that is from 2 1/2" - 3" thick, which I think is too thick. But maybe I'm not looking in the right place. Do you know of any manufacturers I should be looking at?

The short splash complicates things. I'd use dark large format tiles with matching grout, so essentially a non-tile look that blends with the short splash. Anything else will look like an odd narrow stripe running around your long kitchen. Remove the short splash and you'll have more choices.

May_flowers,

I never thought of darker tiles. For some reason I was thinking lighter would be better. I can see darker may work better now. Thanks for the input!

I'd go with something like this:

Or even something like very dark hardwood porcelain or ceramic plank tiles.

{{!gwi}}

{{!gwi}}

I was thinking of floor tiles like nsm posted, though I'd not go that modern with your cabinets. Maybe a square porcelain tile. I think it was in the DuraSupreme catalog where they showed a nice brown 12" square tile on the diagonal for a back splash. You might check their website if that sounds interesting.

I found the DuraSupreme photo on their website. There's another shot of the same kitchen in their photo gallery. You can see it's a short splash. In the catalog it's a sharper photo, and I remembered it from when I got their catalog three years ago!