i can see why you fell in love with it....but have no answers but sympathy

hopefully someone here will have an answer to get the love blooming....

Ooooohhh, this is so my kitchen porn for the day! I love harlequin tile and have been drooling over backsplash pics for a while but hadn't seen that one. Good find...

Expo has some gorgeous tiles...(see link)

Here is a link that might be useful: Drooling over Harlequin link

Sorry, but I don't think diagonal 4x4s tiles will give you the same look as the harlequin tiles.

A friend used harlequin tiles in their Tuscan style guest house last year (gold, yellow-green and rusty-red) and it looked fabulous, along with all the other old world elements (reclaimed rustic beams, solid copper-clad windows & doors, 100 yr old underlayment roof tiles for flooring). They didn't worry about it being "period-appropriate". Heck, for all I know it could be period-appropriate. Didn't the kings of Europe have jesters to entertain them? Isn't that where the harlequin pattern originated?

Would you be willing to do a painted backsplash for a while (like Trailrunner?), then do the harlequin tiles as $$ permit. You could even paint the harlequin pattern temporarily. I've seen that done on walls; they even added brass tacks at all the points. Think about it for awhile. HTH

i have been looking at this type of pattern too. Home Magazine issue from March (??) has a neat yellow tile on the front cover. It is a "rhomboid" tile and has a black dot between each one. That interested me. Then I remembered that Nate Berkus had used a similar tile in redoing Kirstie Alley's kitchen. I looked into it and that is Ann Sacks tile (which I assume is VERY expensive). Anyway, I don't know if I will do anything like this, but I can see why you like the look.

napagirl, I LOVE that idea about painting the pattern. The brass tacks are fabulous!

Nicole

I did a harlequin and used Horus Art tiles which were very, very reasonable. You can see it in the FKB....

How much backsplash do you have? Could you use it in a key part and something plainer for the rest?

Sometimes I'd panic over the sq ft cost of something, then multiply it and realize how little difference it made in the cost of the whole project. Changing tile would be a lot of work. Having something you love every time you walk in the kitchen has significant worth. I'm not one to encourage careless spending, but make sure you've figured out the real difference before giving up.

WOW
The harlequins tiles are stunning. Amortize the extra cost over the life of your satisfaction and just do it! Get what you love. (PS I am so over budget it's stupid, so beware of advice from me. I must say, however, so far, no regrets; I just cross my eyes when I look at the bottom line.)

Here's a couple of harlequin backsplashes. Click here for a gold and white harlequin, and click below for 3 colors:

Here is a link that might be useful:

Here's some from Horus Art - I used Bianco, Caramel and Visone. They've got great accent pieces too!

Here is a link that might be useful: Horus Art - Classico collection in Tiffany Style

Must look away......must not get sucked in...so beautiful it's almost painful...can't change BS decision - again...click back NOW...must go read about car repair or something not as pretty...or maybe just review the costs of the reno so far - that will bring reality back!

Mnhockeymom, where did you buy your Horus Art tiles? I'm only seeing a map of Italy with a red arrow on their website. :-) Do I need to add the cost of an Italian vacation to my budget? Not that I'm against that, but it might eat into my cabinet budget a tad. :-)

Umm, is DH listening...? 'Cuz if you need me to say you need to go to Italy, um, then, yep, I went to Italy and it was still cheaper than other tile ;-P (Did DH believe that??)

All kidding aside, I found them at my local tile store (Interior Stone & Tile in Natick, MA) - I just did what you did on the Horus website and couldn't find any contact info on this continent so I just now did a google search and found loads of tile stores that seem to carry their lines. I'd call a tile shop local to you and if they don't carry it, let me know and I'd be more than happy to call my tile guy and get the Horus Art Sales Rep's contact info and get it to you!

Cool, thanks! I'm fairly certain my DH would be happier to spend the money on the trip to Italy than the kitchen, but it's nice to know it's available locally anyway. :-)

Thanks everyone ! Maybe this love is not so unrequited after all !

Now that I've had a little time to think about it and do some research, I've found out that harlequins (or rhomboids) aren't all that hard to find :-) I have located a couple options ...

1. I can't believe I didn't think of the Tileshop near me in Berkeley. The banner on their homepage shows a rhomboid installation ... d'oh ! So I went over there to check them out today, and quite like them. They come in a lot of nice muted colours, and the wonderful thing about the Tileshop is that they sell by the square foot :-). They are more reasonably priced at around $15/sq ft. One thing that may or may not be an issue is that they are listed as 3"x6" tiles, but are actually bigger than that ... they are probably more like 4"x7". Of course I brought a couple home to admire ...

2. Daltile makes 3"x6" (true to size) harlequins in the Rittenhouse Square line. I went to Home Depot to price them out, and they run about $70 for a 5.25 sq ft box, so about $13/sq ft, and a more manageable box size than the 11sq ft AO box. These are nice tiles that seem a little more pleasingly dimensioned than the Tileshop tile, but the major drawback is that they are only available in several shades of white, almond, black and vermilion. Vermilion ain't gonna work in my kitchen.

The backsplash is pretty much over a single 14' long counter run between two walls. I figure I could run subways along top and bottom of backsplash, maybe a 1/2" liner, then the harlequin field inbetween. I think this could look nice in a single colour (using the Daltile harlequins), or in two shades (using Tileshop harlequins). What do you think ?

Thanks for all your great suggestions ...

fairytalebaby - those Expo tile are nice, but I'm not looking for glass. Very pretty though !

kelleg - oh yeah, I drooled over those Ann Sacks tiles too ! Yum. DEFINITELY those would break the budget. Budget, schmudget.

mnhockeymom - Nice ! I tried searching for Horus and couldn't find anything local. Also, do you know if they have a variety of colours ?

rhome - you are right, you made me think about using a subway border around the whole backsplash. I sat down and properly calculated sq footage I'd need, and a couple hundred extra at this point is probably not such a big deal, especially if I don't feel like I'm wasting a lot of it. I guess I just need to check that this won't be hugely more expensive to install. Where's Bill V when ya need him ?????? LOL !

napagirl - oooooh. Aaaaaah. Although I am looking for more of a simple glazed ceramic look for this backsplash, that one certainly is a focal point for that space !

they do have a decent variety of colors but they are definitely more muted than you might see in other ceramics - they have a white, cream, soft blue, sage green, dove grey, moss, caramel/gold, chocolate, jute, platinum, bronze, silver, gunmetal grey.

I also looked at the ones napagirl suggests - they are quite an eye catcher but just a little more of a statement than I was looking for.

Here's behind my range:

So what was the verdict?
I too am looking for rhomboid or harlequin shaped tiles and have bookmarked many of the suggestions from this post.
We have just started planning our kitchen and I love this classic, fun look.
I'd love to see any photos of finished backsplashes out there!
Thanks.

I'm not normally big on wallpaper, but the harlequin tile design has always been very big in the wallpaper world. You couldn't use this behind a range, of course, but maybe elsewhere in the kitchen?

Here is a link that might be useful: Harlequin wallpaper samples

OK all you backsplash mavens, what think you of this ?

I have been mulling the rhomboids over and really like 'em. I went over to the Tile Shop in Berkeley today, and bought a box each of three colours to try out. (Aside - the Tile Shop is awesome and friendly and helpful, they are really cool about buying by the sq ft and taking back unused tile). So I picked out Buttercream, Flan and Sage, and quickly just put together this pattern. It's sitting on my (yet uninstalled) dishwasher panel to give you an idea of the cabinet colour. In real life, they seem to look more muted than they do in the photo, I think.

Here they are against my wall colour ...

My countertops will be MTex Julia, a dark matte soapstone that tends to dark green.

The darker green subway tile is Spruce, and I just grabbed it as a sample, in case I thought it worked better, but I don't think it does.

What do you think ?

Pretty, but maybe too regular given the unevenness concerns you voiced in another thread. (That was you, right? I'm not hallucinating I hope.) Also wondering if maybe the yellowish color is too close to the paint color.

We've been to that tile shop (Bay area resident too). They didn't have what we wanted, though. Too bad because Hubby's sister gets a discount there.

I think it looks great! As for it blending w/ the paint color, I like that...okay, it's what I did so of course I like it! My fluted crown piece at the top of mine blends great w/ my wall and I think it keeps it more flowing visually (see pics above).

As for the darker vs lighter green, that's probably a decision only you can make since we can't see your soapstone and the tiles up close :-)

Good points. Yep pbrisjar, that was me with the slopey house. The kitchen is long and narrow, and it would be hard to view the entire backsplash from directly in front, if you know what I mean. So you would usually be viewing it by looking "along" it. Do you think that would make a 5/8" backsplash height difference over 14' look unacceptable ? At least with this pattern, there wouldn't be any horizontal grout lines that would accentuate the level issues, I think ?

mnhockeymom, good point about your tile crown, I hadn't noticed that. I like that. And I agree that final colour decision is difficult without having the countertops in yet ... big decision for Friday afternoon then !

I guess this leads me to a broader question ... do backsplash colours generally differ significantly from wall colour ? I suppose you want it to either match really well, or differ enough to make the decision look deliberate rather than a poor match, right ?

That's the point I was trying to get at with the almost but not quite matching color. Personally, that would bother me - especially if they touch each other.

No horizontal grout lines will be a big help, but you do have some horizontal lines happening with the color pattern. It shouldn't be that bad, though.

And yeah, it'll all change once the counter tops are in.

In theory I like the idea of one of your harlequin tiles being close in color to your wall color; in my mind's eye it reads as harmonious and peaceful. Based on all the gorgeous pictures I've seen of your house and what you're doing to it, it seems that's kind of your goal (you're not doing a purple room next to an orange room -- which I would LOVE in the right context). Also, the other tiles you chose appear on my screen as muted, subtle, so having one of those tiles be similar to the wall makes sense (to me). ???

Without seeing your exciting countertop (yea for you!) I'm going to hold judgment on the subway tile. But think how fun it'll be when your countertop goes in and you can hold these tiles up to see how they all look together.

Off to nursery school -- I'll check back later this week to see your countertop!

I agree w/ what's mentioned above - I too think that having the perfect blend keeps it very harmonious and peaceful. Plus, your colors read very soothing to me so keeping anything from competing with them should be important.

Can't wait to see the counter tops - if the darker green tile is real close to the soapstone in color, my inclination would be to use that over the more muted green, then keep the wall color similar to the cream tile - everything would tie in beautifully and look very intentional, no mistakes!