sue - yeah, we go to the beach all winter long too - weekend here and a weekend there. Someday I hope we have a house there. The beach is beautiful all year - the entire maine/nh coast is beautiful all year though. It's the most beautiful place in the world - Nubble on a stormy day with the water crashing up? The giant mansions that line the coast in Rye? (we used to "pick" out those houses as kids, which were mine, which were my brothers) But I'm a summer beach girl at heart and to walk around with sand between my toes and the sun out, and a good outside shower at the end of the day...ahhhh...and the smell of the marsh at night and the sound of the waves...

My thought was to essentially use the Heath tile as a field tile. The wall of green is my concern as well. I am not sure if I am going for strong statement presence for any tile. All the colors are fairly intense and my thought is that they will balance out so that no one color will shout out "look at me". I want the vintage tile to be there and have a presence but not necessarily shout. Also as my kitchen is a longish galley, there is really no perspective where someone sees the vintage tile straight on unless they are cooking or standing in the landing area. I will try to take a couple of perspective shots and post it. On using other 4x4s or cream or white tiles as field tiles. I have gone to fireclay multiple times as their tile time is similar to stonelight but nothing has really clicked. I am not able to picture the pencil liner around the vintage tile picture frame and the continung elsewhere idea. Robotropolis - Negative space for eye to rest --> I think I sort of get it but not sure how to achieve it :) Hopefully the wise ones in this forum will guide me and prevent me from going astray. Localeater - you are right. I do want to use the vintage tile as that has been the inspiration from the beginning and it is the tie in to the hood. Mabel - I specified the colrs based on the BM color sample sheets, The cabinet guys mixed it in the lacquer they use for spraying. I will recheck but the issue maybe the light when I took the photos. It was late evening on a cloudy day with only my splash.

Thanks SO much for the suggestions!!! I have options:) If I decide to go with the over the stove option only, I could consider some of those "busy" tiles that I love. Spb59, I have thought about the water problem also. Over the last four years, there have been many times when the stove has over boiled and flooded the backsplash! It has never been a problem with the 4 inch. Do you have paint or tiles above it? This post was edited by annalyn123 on Sun, Jul 21, 13 at 13:38

THANK YOU ALL for the great suggestions! I'm definitely going to go lighter for the countertops then! Showed all the comments to my hubby as well to convince him ;) At the warehouse now... just found out slab #3 (light gray and white) has a "smiley face" crack on it :/ I'll have to see if the fabricator can work around it. The "super white" looks super gray here. The frosty carrina looks great but still a little expensive for us :( Aprilneverends-You're so right about the movement on the cabinets! We had painted over builder's oak. That is a big factor that I'm considering when picking the movement on the countertop Aboxofcrayons-I love your cabinets! Is it the distressed wood look? I would love to see your kitchen once the countertops are installed! Oldbat2be- I have laminate right now and there are few burn spots on it too. I'm dying for something new, glossy, and durable :) Torreykm-We had our cabinets painted with a gray stain. I originally wanted a distressed wood or driftwood look. Our GC ended up painting it! We just left it then lol. I can find out which color and brand we used and I can post it here when I get back home :) I'll keep you guys posted! Thanks so much again!!!