Yes, removing the 4" splash first would by my suggestion to avoid chopping up the bs area with the black and white lines. Barring that option, I would tile the back wall only. I personally dislike tile hanging out past an upper cab. Also, you don't need tile on the short wall in your space for wall protection, which is the purpose of a bs. Very pretty sparkly black counters!

Here's ours.

I would tile the back wall only if I was going to add tile.

Thank you! The reason we don't want to remove the granite bs is that by our sink, it is an integral part of a built in granite shelf above and around the sink and to continue it just seemed to work. But it just occurred to me that we COULD remove just the one piece of granite backsplash to the far right in my photo (light switch wall). Would you do that? Or just leave it alone and only subway tile the back wall?

I would tile above the granite. It's very pretty! Wondering what the name of it is???

Prospect11, love your kitchen. Beautiful!! What do you have for cabinets?

I would not remove that one little section of granite bs if it will remain in the rest of the kitchen. I would just tile the back wall.

The granite is Emerald Pearl. If sunlight is shining directly on it, you can see very dark green (thus, "Emerald" Pearl) but without sunlight it reads like in this picture..black with silvery blue/gray flecks.

Agree, prospect711 kitchen is lovely!

Beautiful counter - can you post more pictures of the whole kitchen - but overall, if you can't remove it - then I would do the back wall.

prospect - where have you been hiding that gorgeous kitchen!

Glad you like the kitchen - it was finished November 2011. Link below to reveal. Cabs are Amish-made natural cherry, counter is Beleza soapstone, backsplash is slate corinth.

Here is a link that might be useful: Prospect Kitchen

The Granite shop owner told us that the 3 or 4 inches of granite on the wall helps with cleaning. Tiles have lots of joints as they are smaller and leaves more chances of water seeping into the walls. The granite has less joints and thus when you use water to clean, there is less chance of seepage.

We are going to do up our kitchen and although I dont like the look of the 4 inches of granite on the wall, it seems to be a real practical solution. Since we wash all our vessels at the sink and do not use a dish washer, we also have a granite pencil on the outer edges of the granite countertop.

That's a good point serene.one. I'd like to do that just behind the sink but can't figure out how to make it look good. So far we haven't talked to the granite shop owner or anyone who gives any input at all.

I'd suggest tiling only on the back wall. Yet, I think that will look funny in the corner and will accent the 4" granite BS. So, I think if you can take off the side BS and then just do the back wall that's probably the solution I'd go with. That or just leave it as is and skip the tile as it looks very pretty already with your paint.

In my current kitchen, I intentionally tiled only the long back wall for an accent and then I put 4" Cambria on the side walls because my roaming young adult children appear and make quite a mess in my clean kitchen. Yours would be similar except I don't have the 4" splash on the back wall.

a2gemini - here is a picture showing more of the kitchen, as you requested. Thanks all for the input!