I can see why it might be advisable to remove the left/rt portions of tile, but I would be inclined to wait until ithe kitchen is completed before deciding. If, as your gut tells you, it "needs" to come down, nothing is really lost except a little more time with it up. Perhaps knowing you are not "locked-in" or committed to it, will help give the perspective to view it more objectively while deciding for sure. This way you will not only have the chance to see it with everything else in place, but you will also have the opportunity to get used to it, before deciding if you truly dislike it, or just haven't gotten used to it being there. As subtle (in color) as our tile is, after months of looking at white painted Sheetrock, it still looked "different" and stood out when we looked at our kitchen. Once we became accustomed to it, we couldn't imagine our walls without it. That's how I am with many things--after living with a blank wall or empty space for any period of time, even a long awaited piece of furniture or decor item jumps out at me, and almost seems like too much, until I get used to the vacant space being filled. Thanks for the compliments on our backsplash Laura and andreak100! It's the Opera Glass tile from Artistic Tile (Stilatto pattern) in Wolfgang White. It does read greenish-blue(-grey) in certain lights or times of day. We had to think about that one while deciding if we wanted to use it, and obviously decided to go for it! Good luck Laura! Honestly, whatever you decide will look terrific!

I'm not so green...but there are some lovely recycled glass backsplashes available now a days. They're still glass though :) I always feel that as soon as you see it at home despot, it's on it's way out so I try to stay away from trends mostly. I'm doing a mix of a marble mosaic (classic chickens in a barnyard) and crackle tile. Crackle tile is getting more popular, but it tends to be expensive, so it still isn't seen everywhere. Personally I find well done, almost always works for longer than cheaply done. Pay the most money you can for the big items in a room, and they'll last longer, both fashionably and functionaly. America recycles Kevin :) Let's not be overly dramatic...we're not all throwing our plastic into the ocean (just me) :OP (I"M KIDDING!!!!)

I don't think we'll ever fully redo this kitchen. We'll probably only be in this house for another 2-5 years, and we're really just looking to make the space more enjoyable for us and up the resale value a bit. Our kitchen is very small, especially for a 4 bedroom house. So without knocking down walls and changing the whole layout of the 1st floor, we're not going to have a gourmet kitchen. And we're just not prepared to put that kind of money in the house given the state of the market, and I don't think our neighboorhood can support the kind of increase in price that we'd want to see to make it worth it. Sorry for all that rambling! Long story short, I think we're going to try to keep it simple for now, and save all these beautiful kitchen ideas for our next house.

This is the kitchen now with just natural light. (this may look bad but it's an improvement from when we purchased it!). The almond appliances are fairly new (within last couple of years) so they won't be replaced anytime soon and I just have to work with them. The walls are SW Contented. This week I'm going to remove the apron bit above the sink and take down that shelf and move the outlet closer to the coffeemaker. I had dreams of blowing out the walls and opening up this floor and really turning it into a cool, MCM kitchen but that just wouldn't make sense at all for resell in this area. Plus, we couldn't afford to do that for awhile!