Sorry, skimchi, for taking so taking so long to answer - it is a Crema Bordeaux. Just thought that I would thank everyone for taking the time to help me in my decision - much, much appreciated! I went to the granite store today and ordered a piece to go behind the stove - picked a piece that has a big splotch of the peachy coloured bit as well as the burgundy waves. I've ordered a custom bevel to match that of my cab doors, on three sides (top near the fan and then the two sides).....and to be able to accomodate the CHOCOLATE coloured matte tiles nicely. Sigh, yes, we went with chocolate. DH really really didn't like the cream, so I tried out the skinner 2 x 12 chocolate tiles behind the sink - interspersed with 2 x 2 of the little glass tiles.....and we love it!!! So I tried to be higher end, changed up the pattern, and gave it a go on the shortest of the L shaped backsplash walls....with a bit less success. The colour of the tile reminds me of hot chocolate. Maybe I'll tire of it by summer, and given the skills of the person who applied the tile (me), we'll be able to simply pop off the tiles and try something else :) I'll post photos in a couple of weeks, once the granite is in and the tiles are on! Again, thanks to everyone for sharing their opinions - it helped us truly explore our likes and dislikes!

Catara -if it's properly glued to the drywall, it won't be removable. Taking it out would take out the drywall too. Ask the fabricator about the drawbacks to each method. Grinding it down risks more damage to the slab, so my thought would be to remove drywall and install granite. (or install granite over drywall and add another layer of drywall to make the wall level.

I don't like the 4" backsplash for the following reasons: - if you are doing a decorative tile for the rest of the backsplash, you are now decreasing and cutting off your design area by 4". - the 4" creates a little "shelf" that gets dusty, just one more thing to clean. - added expense to install the 4" piece of granite along your countertop. - people who say you "need it" to cover a gap between the countertop and the tiled wall just don't have good installers. My kitchen walls are extremely out-of-plumb, but my tile backsplash meets my granite countertop with no gaps cause I had experienced installers. - IMHO it looks dated, since the 4" idea was popular with formica in the '70's. I would only do a 4" backsplash if I were doing no other backsplash at all and just leaving drywall on the rest of the wall. And even in that case, I'd try to make it a little higher, like 5" or 6".

I'm not sure how dark that granite is. From one picture on the web, it looked kind of medium colored. We have a fairly dark granite backsplash and really like it. Our cabinets are natural cherry so they aren't dark. We really like it and we don't find that it makes the kitchen dark. It is less than 18" of the 8' wall height. We did it partly for easy maintenance (no grout), partly because we really like our granite and this features it more, and partly because we liked the continuity. We also used the granite for the window sill and the pass through shelf outside the kitchen (this picture has the temporary black wallplate, I don't have one taken showing the shelf taken after we put in the granite wallplate covers):