Hi--my Victorian house was built in the early 1890's, so I have a very simple, very retro kitchen, and we intend to honor its spirit when we finally get around to rehabbing it! It needs quite a bit of work, and so far I've only painted the walls yellow. I bought some patterned back splash tile that I thought would work with a vintage kitchen, but we haven't done any of the tiling yet. The tile has a cinnamon brown color, yellow, white, and off-white. Perhaps these colors, which are zippy but not too over-the top, might work with your daughter's tiles. Please excuse the ookey, old vinyl in the background of my picture--its days are numbered!
The 'white' in the middle of the tile is a truer white, while the 'white' closer to the edges is more of a bone or off-white:

Thanks, Kim, for your response. Your tiles are lovely and I think the color scheme you're going with with look great in a Victorian kitchen.

I should have stated that the house is a 1970's New England split-level. So they're not trying so much to stay with a period style kitchen,as simply lighten and update it.

These tiles are plain, square ceramic tiles. They were thinking painting the cabs a soft white, but were stumped (as am I)about what to go with in a countertop with that combo.

All ideas are welcome! We're in brainstorming mode -

I love kitchens with a little yellow and your daughter's tile sounds like just the right accent. Yellow can be pretty garish but a soft yellow can be so cheerful and unexpected. I have always wanted a white kitchen with yellow and darkish blue. I still have a bunch of fabric I bought in 1974--large (about 3") blue checks, hoping that some day . . . Oh well, I've had a number of very nice kitchens, but never that white, yellow and blue one.
My brother and SIL have a 70's ranch (a whole ranch and a itty bitty ranch house). The original yellow countertop is still there. They painted the kitchen a nice green. Looks nice with the yellow.
White is always right with yellow and of course yellow and orange were very big together in the 70's. My stuff was orange and yellow (I avoided that olive green).
Definitely keep the yellow and you're right not to glam up the kitchen too much. I'll be interested in seeing the pictures. Congrats and best wishes to your DD.

Thanks so much, Annie, for your thoughts. The first impulse was to tear out the tile, but everyone kept going back to it and pondering how it could be made to work.

I like a blue and yellow combo, too. And this time of year yellow and green seem to welcome springtime. Didn't want to mention those thoughts in my OP, in case it threw off someone else's vision who was seeing other color schemes.

Any other thoughts.....suggestions....

Are the baseboards and trim painted or stained in the kitchen and the rest of the house?

What a pleasant design problem to have. It's so nice and so rare to hear even a mention of a pretty yellow tile. And it sounds like a cute space.

Yellow looks great and is a good blender with just about all its fellow yellows, creams, and golds, and goes well with wood with gold tones. Woods with pinkish tones, no. Really, it usually looks horrible with the pinkish-mauvish range but a soft yellow goes with almost everything else.

Something really simple and blending, like a painted cream/white, or a light golden wood, (or really most colors in the same lightness range as the tile), would give them a calm but cheery background for various purchases they they might make. Keeping the contrast mostly to accent items would also make the space look larger, or at least not break the picture up into a bunch of different blocks, and let them focus attention on whatever they specifically chose for focal points, like the dining table in the bay at one end and ?? at the other?

Kim, looking forward to seeing yours too!

Pale yellow looks great with lavender - maybe lavender wall paint w white cabs and the yellow tile.

My sister in law moved into an older bungalow and within a couple of months had the whole place fresh, warm and charming for next to nothing. The kitchen is soft but cheerful yellow. Rather than face redoing the cabinets, she uses an adjoining closet for a pantry and removed all the upper cabinet doors, and uses the space to display her collections of red and yellow dishes and vintage fire king floral glassware & bowls. She spray-painted all the metals black wrought iron. She has a habit of spray painting things from flea markets either bright red or wrought iron. So basically the colors are yellow, white, red, and black. It works. The yellow pulls everything together. It is the kind of kitchen you never want to leave. She would kill for the very yellow backsplash you describe. Oh, and they made their countertops themselves out of unfinished wood flooring with several coats of marine varnish.

I've posted this picture before so if you've seen it, I apologize. My kitchen is painted soft yellow. My cabinets are cream with a golden glaze, countertops are speckled blue solid surface. I love it and am trying to reproduce it in the house we're just starting. Grandson Cody should have had on a yellow shirt when he wandered into the shot

Awww! I have two grandsons about that size, born 3 weeks apart. You must have caught him in between pulling stuff out of the cabinets. I love your kitchen, too. I forgot to mention, Amck, that mine own's painted a pale creamy yellow with mostly white cabinets and pine floors so that I can change out all the colors I love with it as I like. Hostagrams, your picture makes me think it's time for blue again.