I don't have a pic I can post right now, but I did subway tiles on a half-bath wall, combining 3 colors of tile: matte white, glossy white, and an off-white. My original reasoning for doing that was that I was going to have a toilet from 1 mfg and a sink from another, and the whites in the 2 fixtures didn't match exactly, and so I though that having several shades in the wall tiles would help soften the difference. In fact, I ended up with toilet and sink from the same mfg, so it didn't matter, but I LOVE the combination of tile colors/finishes on the wall...

Missleah, I just went through the same thing. Check the thread titled "for those of you with white cabinets and white subway tiles..." I was in despair because I held up a (very) white subway tile we had used to tile the bathrooms next to our white-until-you-see-it-against-something-really-white cabinet door sample. It looked terrible. Little did I know there were many options out there. Luckily a lot of people on this forum came to the rescue with suggestions of tile companies with different shades of white. So far, I have gotten samples of Anchor Bay and Subway Ceramics; both have off-white tiles that look great with our cabinet. I also discovered that our local tile shop carries Irongate (Meredith) tiles; they have a crackle that goes well with our cabinets and some nice decoratives for a backsplash. Samples are definitely the way to go.

Some manufacturers make bullnose on the short side tiles as well as long edge bullnose tiles, (and corner bullnose tiles as well). If they make bullnose on the short edge, you can continue the running bond pattern and not have to turn the tiles vertical to have a bullnosed edge. The project we used these on, they were special order even though the subway field tile was stocked. Your husband may need to count the number of tiles needed in each configuration and special order. I agree about not using the sanitary base at the countertop :)

Maybe combine the ideas from the 2 pictures. I like the design & simplicity of the framed insert that may_flowers posted 2/13/14 at 12:01, the plain square tiles on the diagonal with a fairly simple border & frame. Surround that with subway tiles. I think that would be pretty but not too ornate or overwhelming. This post was edited by romy718 on Mon, Feb 17, 14 at 20:29