What about some kind of wood trim to sort of "level it out?" The subway would show the uneveness, but maybe a trim could hide it...

I was considering putting trim at the top but I thought that might just highlight the uneveness even more.

magsnj - I must have been typing as you submitted your comment. But, yes, that is what my experience has been. The crown or other trim at that top will make it more obvious, vs. just letting the tile die into the ceiling.

Maybe putting a decorative shelf up high with some ornate glass? Not sure if your stove has a hood all the way up the wall...

How bad is it? I just this week tiled all the way to the ceiling behind the stove in my 100 year old house. I'd say the difference from one end to the next in mine is about 1/2". I have 9' ceilings, and I doubt (hope) anyone would notice. I know because I did the tiling, but I suspect the casual visitor wouldn't even be aware of this. I did use a creamy white tile though, and this butts up against a white ceiling.

Thanks everyone! The ceiling slants 3/4 of an inch. Way too much for a skim coat to help. I actually have shelving going up (for the second time)but that doesn't help. Actually, I think the level shelves going up over the level countertop made me notice the unlevel ceiling for the first time.

Could you stop the tile down from the ceiling just a bit, keep the ceiling color very close to the tile color and then paint the bit of wall left between the top of the tile and the ceiling? I'll be that would make it disappear. Our current house has the worst, most uneven (seriously) ceilings e.v.e.r. Same color paint on ceilings and walls helped very much in making that problem recede from the eye.

Ours is unlevel by about 1/2". The subway tile touches the ceiling. I really doubt anyone notices this.

I really like tile taken all the way up, and it sounds as if you can do this. Needinfo's tip about the tile blending into paint the same color is a really good one. Also a blending grout color to not accentuate the lines.

FWIW, also, the less prominent the horizontal lines created by tile shape and layout, the less it would show. Should you not be happy with how subway looked, a change of shape would probably work nicely.

Then there's always distraction. Keeping foci of attention generally in an eye level range will encourage people to glance around, not up.

Of note, our brains typically tell us we're seeing what it expects us to be seeing, imposing a "usual pattern" interpretation. So encouraging it to assume a usual pattern, avoiding a reason to actually focus, will work much better than we really want it to.

Just a thought, not sure how it'd look... Start with a border of one course laid vertically. 6 to 5.25 will be a lot less noticeable than 3 to 2.25. Or a course of 6x6, which is what we did along the floor in one of our bathrooms.

This post was edited by foodonastump on Wed, Oct 23, 13 at 8:13

We just did this exact backsplash in our entire kitchen. Our tile installers had to do a lot of cuts on that last uppermost row, but you can hardly notice the difference, unless of course, you have spent a lot of money to pay for it and are looking for any mistakes. ;) We did white with white grout- we love it, and you definitely wouldn't notice the 1/2" or so difference. Good luck!

I wonder if it would help if the course right at the top was in the middle of the tiles? So that the unevenness wasn't close to a strong horizontal grout line?

I strongly second deedles's suggestion.

It is certainly worth climbing a ladder to noodle around with a pencil, a plumb line, and a straight edge or t-square, so you can discover how far from the ceiling the tile would have to end to have the painted top of the wall disguise the problem.

Aren't old houses great?

I had that problem in a bathroom's shower enclosure ... the tile installer kept everything level with whole tiles across the top.

We filled in the gap with wall patching compound so there was no shadow line, then painted it to match the ceiling.

If you know it's there you can spot it, but it's almost invisible.

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You also can make up the 3/4 inch by fudging the tile spacing as you go up the wall. Have the top row follow the ceiling line, the bottom row follow the counter and increase the spacing on that side of the tiled wall to compensate.

If you spread that 3/4 inch across 15 rows of tile ... gap between each high-side row only needs to be 1/20 of an inch wider than the gap between tiles on the lower side.

Start 3-4 feet away from the wall and add a teensy smidge to each space.

Thank you all so much!! I love hearing that other people have the same problems and don't think it's so bad. Some things to note:

The ceilings are only 8 feet tall.

The kitchen is only approx 10x12

I'm having 2 rows of open shelving which may hightlight the uneveness (unless I hang those unlevel ;) ) I thught of only bringing the tile up to the second shelf but I'd prefer to go to the ceiling.

I had wanted to do white subway tile with a greige grout (oyster grey), but I see what you mean about it highlighting the unevenness at that top. I could do white grout instead.

PS. Does anyone have any pictures of their uneven ceiling and subway tiled wall?

I definitely wouldn't make the shelving unlevel :) Do you have any pics of the space?

Not sure how it'll help, but here it is.

It definitely helps put things in perspective.

I'd either carefully plan for a full course on the high end and trim down to 2.25, or cut 6" tile to go from 3 on the low side up to 3.75.

Either way I wouldn't stress about it too much. If I bought a 100 y.o. house I wouldn't make apologies for it showing its age in some imperfections. I might even celebrate it with contrasting grout! ;)

I think you are overly concerned about nothing big. (I'm the one who also has a 100 year old house with subway tile all the way up to the uneven ceiling). Rather than starting at the top and focusing on how to even out the ceiling tiles, we started with a full row of tiles at the counter level because, after all, this is what the casual observer will most likely look at. The one other thing to try to figure out (easier said than done) is if the amount of space you have available once you really get to the ceiling will result in nearly full size tiles (this is our situation) that vary in size or very small slivers. IMO a row of teeny slivers that then transitions to no tiles would be most obvious.

Hi,
I ran into this in my bathroom; the path I took was the "sailorr course" at the base and the top (for the tub surround) which allowed me to take care of the 1 1/2" slope of the floor (much smaller along the ceiling). Make the sailor courses vertical lines half out of phase with the head joints of the field tiles.
It's easier to hide discrepancies in a 6" dimension than in a 3" dimension, because it's a matter of ratios/proportions.
This shows the idea at the floor line:

I'd widen the spacing between the tiles for about the top 1/3 of the wall - just along the high side and spreading them beginning a few feet away from the wall. If you widen each gap by a tiny amount you will spread the error across so many grout lines the differences will be invisible. 1mm per line across 20 rows will do it.

With the counters level, and the tile parallel to the counter, and the shelves level with the counter ... your eye will see all the tiles as level.

I'm convinced! I'm gonna do it. Wish me luck!

Thanks for the pics Casey! They were really helpful!

You have some good suggestions here but I want to add an uneven ceiling or floor is part of the charm of an old house. Don't stress, I like sombreuil_mongrel solution best.