Sharon, Stick on tiles might work fine for a backsplash, especially if it doesn't get a lot of gunk on it and need a lot of wet cleaning, but I wouldn't want them on a countertop because they could get really icky if moisture gets under them wehre they come together, and bits of food could get into the joins as well. Have you thought of mixing a color paint you like better? Or stenciling a pattern?

If you have trouble visualizing what you'd like but "know it when you see it", then at this stage you should probably just look at as many stainless / dark cherry kitchens as you can and see which countertops and flooring "grab" you. In my case I knew I wanted simple, natural cherry cabinets and stainless appliances and probably a wood floor, but that was it. Looking at lots of pictures helped me narrow things down, so now I can at least have intelligent conversations with kitchen designers. I'd suggest going over to houzz.com and entering "stainless steel dark cherry kitchen" into their search box and looking through some of the hundreds of results you get. It's a great source of ideas. After you see some you like, you can probably come up with more words to add to the search box to narrow things down. You can also go to google and enter "site:gardenweb.com dark cherry stainless" and you'll find lots of threads on this site too. I don't know of a way to limit it to threads with photos, unfortunately. Laura

I LOVE your counters - I considered a Blue Australe which seems similar to laboradite, but it was almost twice the price, at the time, of what I ended up choosing, Volga Blue. (very hard capturing either of these stones in a picture, isn't it) So I understand your challenge, I spent a long time puzzled over a backsplash for my counters. I went with the Seneca Tile company's Blue Lagoon from the Studio line. My counter reads black and hints of silver at first glance, the blue inclusions are subtle until you are trying to look for them, so it doesn't read too busy in real life. In the same line, they have a gorgeous variegated green called Waterlily, it might work in your kitchen Seneca waterlily- here's some more inspiration, some of these blue/ green mixes that may work- from http://senecatiles.com/senecablends-gallery/nggallery/page/1 Here's a work in progress shot of our Blue Lagoon backsplash going up- I have no regrets going bold and colorful, I feel happy every time I look at it

I think we are moving in the direction to do the island, perimeter counters and backs splash (all the way up the wall) in the same White Santorini Quartzite. Any feedback on this? Im sensitive to adding too many different materials into the mix. Is this too much of one thing?