Hydragea, oh yes I did need this forum! The comments I got back in February helped solidify my choices and gave me confidence. It is very hard for me to visualize a finished look - so posting the pictures and getting feedback was so helpful. My other major influence on what NOT to choose for backsplash tile was Canadian interior decorator and blogger Maria Killam. She has lots of posts about choosing granite patterns and appropriate backsplash tile. She seemed to be a lone voice out there saying plain is better. She advises against trendy mosaic accent tiles that may be out of style in 5 years as well as tile that 'fights' with your granite pattern (formica pattern in my case). I felt the same way, but reading her rationale was the gamechanger. You can access her many, many topics at mariakillam.com.

To me bianco romano is on the busy side, so I would put a non-busy backsplash. Eg. pulling pale cream and doing just that color like muranogirls pale cream backsplash or pulling pale gray from it and doing just that color like ni_2006's pale gray ceramic tile. Here is a pale glass tile backsplash in a color that is not pulled from the countertop. (Grout lines make it slightly busy.) Someone recently posted a frosted white glass subway tile with stainless tile just at the range that was gorgeous. You could use 2x8s or soldier pattern or a "blend" of frosted and clear glass to make it more modern. Here is a link that might be useful: bianco romano with glass backsplash

I have to have one. I've been advised that the heat from the Viking range is a danger hazard for one thing (believe me, it is!). The two back burners are hardly used at this point because of that. And it gets really dirty back there which is hard to keep up with on paint. Also, I've already noticed since it being painted that behind the sink area you can see splash marks, etc. and worse, some small nicks in the paint from the faucet handle (we had to adjust it's placement due having to bring in the wall while in construction). So I really do need something which I can wash down easily and to hide some errors in the wall too. There are several little things which went wrong in my renovation so having tile would make a world of difference to hide them. It's one of the things in the kitchen which makes me batty although it seems I'm the only one who notices them!

Well, I had a look at the full tile online: And this was the best picture I could find. From what I see, the "value" color is the highest contrast of this style, correct? And I assume that your picture above is closer than this one I found...so basically will show as a black and white hex tile. Now this photo above shows the tile laid in a kind of random pattern--you can see a couple of white ones next to each other and a few black ones next to each other. An individual tile on the Emser website shows looks like this: so this could be laid out very symmetrically....like white dots surrounded by black dots (if you squint you'll see it). My thinking is that if you do it this way, it will look very polka dotty....both because of the high contrast and because of the symmetry. I'm going to go ahead and assume this is NOT what you want unless you enjoy a migraine with your coffee... Now if you plan on having it set more random (like the tile website shows) make sure that your installer knows that... Are you sure you want that much of a contrast, though? Especially all over that wall? It's a lot to take in... That website does have a "visualizer" but I'm not sure if you can download your own picture as you have to register... I guess I wrote a lot but didn't say much :-/ However, I'm not one to discourage if it's a look you love. ETA Wayfair sells these if you want to buy a few and try it out...