You may have already made a decision on this but I thought I'd just weigh in with my thoughts anyway ... six months ago we finished fitting out a new kitchen and we are thrilled with both the look and the practicality of it all. Initially I was going to go down the glass splash back track but eventually I chose tiles because I decided that, for me, the seamless splash back was a bit bland and same same. I also love blue, brown and white as a palette – and the tiles I chose were just slightly wonky (not too crazy – they still had to be easy to wipe over etc), rectangular, hand-made Spanish tiles in a lovely duck-egg blue. The slight wonkiness means they catch the light beautifully as you move around the room. The benches and cupboards are a warm white and the large island bench is a fantastic slab of spotted gum with another long piece of spotted gum on the upstand behind the sink. Behind the stove (which is the only place that the real concern about grotty grout really comes into play) we have a stainless steel splash back going up to the rangehood. Not sure if this helps but I am thrilled with my kitchen and have no regrets about going with interesting tiles.

I ended up using Lea Ceramiche Slim Tech porcelain panels from the Baltic stone range. My husband (a bold DIYer) decided to use the angle grinder to cut it himself. It was all good until he glued it on and pressed it sightly to make it adhere. There was a small crack. I could have cried! We decided it was barely noticeable (a hairline crack) so we have left it and it looks superb. No grout lines, easy to clean and so modern looking. We also used it on the face of the island (in front of the bar stools). We are SO happy with it. It cost roughly $450 (aud) a panel but a panel is 3 metres long x 1 m high x 3mm thick. I highly recommend these for an alternative to glass or tiles. :)

My vote is for matte as well. Especially in the bathroom. If the tiles are near the shower, the glossy ones seem to lose their shine to the soap scum and need constant cleaning like glass screens, whereas it doesn't seem to happen on the matte tiles which are quite easy to clean. The stove and the sink are really the only places needing a spashback in the kitchen and my vote would be for matte finish there, even if you use the same tiles in gloss every where else.

Cherry Pop - great looking tiles, however your decsion to use them as splashback will depend on their size and the height of the available area to tile. With such a strong pattern you don't want to trim a tile to fit the height. The ideal solution would be to install the window so that the distance between the underside of the window architrave, near the bottom of the window, and the installed benchtop is exactly one tile in height. This will need some careful measurement and juggling of trades to get it perfect. Or you could change your pool tile to be less of a feature such as this simple, white, square, contemporary mosaic. As it is smaller, and has no pattern then it doesn't matter if a row needs to be trimmed to fit in the available wall space. Best of luck, Dr Retro of Dr Retro House Calls