I suppose the question is "What are you going to do with the untiled wall?". Will it just be painted plasterboard? If you do decide to just go with the 200mm tiled splashback you will need to be very careful with your tile selection with the sizing and how the edge of tile looks. You should probably select a 200mm tile, as you don't want a cut, half tile in the space between the window sill and benchtop. Some glazed, ceramic tiles also have messy edges, so make sure that your tile selection looks as good from the edge, not just the front, as you will be looking down on the top edge of the tile. Or allow for a tiling edge strip to conceal the edge, but these always make the space look visually busier. With so much happening in your kitchen with the open shelves etc, I would suggest a plainish, neutral tile and tile up to the ceiling for a cleaner, more streamlined look, that doesn't need maintenance and repainting in ten years time. Open shelves often look better against tiles. By tiling to the ceiling there is no exposed tile edge to look messy, which gives you a wider choice of tiles. Best of luck, Dr Retro of Dr Retro House Calls

Thanks Kate, mine is more a kitchenette in a 1930's garage conversion - chrome tapware, red bricks, black cabinets and bamboo benchtop, high ceilings with exposed beams. It has a similar vibe to my fantasy kitchen but on a micro scale. The bricks are beautiful, with some kind of varnish on them already but they are super irregelur and bumpy. I love the idea of a hinged lid over the stove top, which wouldn't detract from the seamlessness of the bricks as I feel a glass panel would. Glass gives off that blueish tinge and would interrupt the flow.

What don't you like about the tiles? If it's the pattern, maybe grouting to match the colour and tone down the visibility of pattern? If it's more that they are too light, too plain, too lacking in colour, too boring, something like that, then identify what it is you don't like and replace with something that gives you what you do want.

If you mean wallpaper literally, I'd say it depends on the wallpaper, and indeed the dimensions of the room, as the result could look very 'busy' and overwhelming if you have a lot of patterning in multiple areas. But as above, I too wondered about wallpaper? You ask if there is such a thing as wallpapering your kitchen island. There is no such thing as wallpapering your splashback, it is a splashback, a back for splashes. Unless it is a case of using an unsuitable material for the appearance and then covering it with clear splashback glass for practicality? And then there is the matter of the reflectivity of the glass and how that affects appearance and whether you would also cover the island in that same way to match? So please explain what you mean?