Oooooh, I like all the ideas above --- hadn't thought of those. I had saved some sites in my Favs for just this purpose. The POs had rubber duckies tiles here and there in the front bathroom and I was just going to cover them up with tile decals. That is, until we found there was a major leak behind the tub and the whole wall of tile ended up having to come out. But these sites had given me lots of ways I was going to cover up those yellow duckies and blue water tiles. I was even thinking about an 8-tile mural (some of these sites have mural decals) to cover the 'pond' tiles the duckies were waddling to. My apologies, I don't know how to make these clickable links. http://www.berlinwallpaper.com/covertile/ http://www.tiletransfers.co.uk/store/comersus_index.asp http://beldecal.stores.yahoo.net/waltilcerdec.html http://2jane.com/detail.aspx?ID=263 http://www.walldecorshops.com/grouptilestickups.html

The kitchen looks very nice so far! Are the rest of your furnishings traditional like this? If so, I'd suggest you start by looking at natural stone tiles or ceramic tiles. My personal preference is for a darker color that would match the tone of your base cabinet on the island.

I agree - that hood is beautiful - maybe find some copper accent pieces for behind the cooktop. The original idea for behind the cooktop looks fine on my computer monitor The tiles you show just look too peachy but maybe the monitor is not true.

Thank you @Flo Mangan and @Bethfor your suggestions. I think that wood extension is so unique - but I'm not sure if I could do it due to all the work it requires and I don't know if I 100% love it. We only have 21" from the edge of the counter to the door frame so I originally thought that it would be too tight a squeeze to have an overhang and be so close to the bedroom door. The idea of having a roll away table is a good idea or maybe just even putting a stool there? I want to say I would use the overhang - but I don't even know. I just would like more counter space when I'm cooking and preparing all of our meals. I took some (hopefully) better pics of the kitchen. Still looking for a kitchen light for the ceiling. I also didn't have the backsplash go all the way up to the ceiling b/c our building made us keep that barrier up (NYC regulations about smoke...) and I thought it might look strange to have the backsplash go all the way up and stop at the ceiling barrier. We have a lot of backsplash left over so I could do that if it looks weird where it stops and would be better going all the way up. Oh, ignore the bench at the kitchen entrance - that is to keep my 17 month old son out!