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.

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. :)

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

I hope you kept your overhead cupboards to be used elsewhere or sold them as they appeared to be in good condition. I have only just seen this post, and was going to show you a picture of a house that had just painted the cupboards and what a difference it made. If you like the beach colours, now is the time to add some of the colours suggested above as part of your accessory colours.....even via spatulas/utensils, tea towel, toaster, jug etc..