It must depend what you cook. I don't do fried, spitty type dishes and the grout around the largish tiles in my now 10 year old kitchen is as good as new. I rubbed car wax into the freshly laid grout lines, same as I did in the bathroom. It also depends on how much light bounces around your kitchen, glass being so reflective shows up smears with light on it. Just above the kettle in the first photo is a good example. Each to their own, I'm a non-glass girl whenever I can get away with it.

I would get in there to enliven up the space without taking away from the clean lines. You don't do that by repeating more of the same. You make the rest of the kitchen, with all its weight and clean lines play into something not the same. I would suggest you look at a gold leaf look ( ie with a little texture in it. Obviously not actual gold leaf) and put the most vibrant magenta pink/red that you dare in a horizontal line about 2 inches wide and going the full length of the area. Just very well executed paint. Make it above your average pot size so it does not disappear behind pots and pans. That way every time you will look at that place in your home and think Oh Yeah! Also, if you would rather .... make the coloured line turquoise.

We did pressed metal splashbacks on a display in a kitchen showroom I used to manage, and as such many of our clients opted for the same look. Powder Coated is definitely the way to go. It stands up really well for durability and is in fact relatively easy to clean compared to many splashbacks. Often people think that glass or stainless steel are the easiest for cleaning, but due to being such a flat reflective surface they show up every splash and if you're going to clean them you really have to clean the full length of splashback. The textured surface of the pressed metal means that it doesn't reflect the same amount of light so you are able to get away with cleaning it less often, and you can also get away with just cleaning the dirty area rather than the full length. The biggest difficulty we found was getting the splashbacks installed as there aren't really any tradesmen who specialize in fitting pressed metal, and those that were willing to cut & fit it were concerned about what would happen if they damaged the paintwork. We had the panels cut to size first before they were powder coated to minimize the risk of chipping the surface.

Hi, I am at same stage of renovating kitchen, regional Western Australia, harder to get different but I have found these at my local tile shop, that had to be ordered in, not up yet but our house is 1960 build and I had the red brick exposed with glass over the top, while very unique and lots of positive comments it was in a chimney location and debris fell behind and I have had it replaced once to clean it up and it happened again so I am afraid it is going, I am covering with same stone as bench top in fire place but I am using some marble tiles on other area. I wanted the stone behind stove top for cleaning purposes but I love the tiles I have selected I hope they look as good once up, I agree about not wanting house stuck too much in 50/60, my bricks were red and I found it quite dark when cooking as well, I am looking forward to clean white behind stove, I actually found the harshness of the old brick a bit depressing.. I don't think industrial look is for me .. I love your lights I think I actually had them on my list... the whole look looks fabulous, I hope you are surviving, I have had enough of cooking in the laundry but I must say I could write a book on the creative gourmet using $29 electric frying pan from target, I have fallen in love with it. :)