Oh I'm definitely not afraid of color... I just know myself well enough to know that I'll get sick of color... so I keep it to my accents & accessories so I can change it as often as I like. Its the same reason I keep my furniture neutral... I can repaint the walls as often as can for $50-ish... Hubby was working on the crown molding again tonight. Looks great, except I dislike the under cab molding. It's not the one we chose, but honestly I'm so sick of fighting with lowes I'm just going to live with it. Its a bit too big for the space :/ love the subway tile idea... going to have that on my list for tomorrow.

I can't answer your question, but I found this picture on Houzz. The tiles are laid out differently on the floor compared to the walls. Running bond on the walls and herringbone on the floor. Looks fine to me. But I love variety. Your walls will need to be extremely flat to do the large format tile with tight grout lines. 12x18 tiles laid on the diagonal seem awkward to me with the dimension of the backsplash space available. Draw it out on graph paper, to scale, to see if you'd like it. Herringbone in that size might work, but you might not have enough space to really pick up the pattern effectively. Again a drawing would be very helpful to you to decide. [Contemporary Kitchen[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/contemporary-kitchen-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_709~s_2103) by San Francisco Media & Bloggers Lucy McLintic This one might have tiles in your size, but its really hard to tell: [Contemporary Kitchen[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/contemporary-kitchen-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_709~s_2103) by Kailua Architects & Building Designers Archipelago Hawaii Luxury Home Designs This post was edited by enduring on Sat, Jul 5, 14 at 1:23

All, thanks a lot for your honest feedback (please keep them coming!) Raehelen - This has been also a dilemma for me: the overhang question with the 24" tiles. I have researched this quite a bit. Maybe should post this on a separate thread but for now here is a run down: There are few options: 1) Going for ultra modern look and stop at the cabinet depth (this should be OK only if the total depth of the cabinets stops at 24" - Otherwise would look weird with doors and drawer faces protruding beyond the counter edge). 2) Finishing the edge with a trim piece: Either similar to the material of your cabinetry to give it some consistency or use a metal edging (there is a cool company names schluter-systems (www.schluter.com) that offers such solutions especially designed for tiled counters) 3) Running a small strip of the tile in the back  Can be the tile itself, OR a completely different tile, likely the same as the backsplash. Thinking in the line of 1" mosaics that continues onto the backsplash. Can do lots of things here just requires a bit of creativity. Bellacat_2008 - The tile is called Steelwork, color Argento (it comes also in a bronze/copperish and a darker/black tone). The manufacturing company was difficult to figure out  as most suppliers wonÂt tell you their sources. But it is called "Fioranese" I think. Bellow is a link to a website that has some pictures of it in different settings: Here is a link that might be useful: tile pics

Thank you all for your comments and for sharing pictures. We will have to think long and hard with this. In the end, it will probably come down to what we can find that we like and the sizes available. I like the idea of starting with a straight tile to break it up if we want to do diagonal. We went out again today and found a travertine that we really liked - only available in 3 x 6 in the honed finish that we like. (So subway might be in our future.) It's very light - Baja Cream is what it's called and I'd have to see how much variation there is to determine if it would be a good fit with the countertop. I see what you're saying, mayflowers, about travertine but think a very light might work. Thanks again.