Lovely kitchen! Question: why did you choose to end the backsplash past the upper cabinet, but not the end of the peninsula countertop? I have an almost similar situation w/ my upper cabinet and countertop. HOWEVER, my peninsula countertop (butcherblock) is a different material from my cooktop countertop (marble). I'm planning to end my backsplash (marble) to line up w/ the upper cabinet, even though it'll go past the countertop into the butcherblock (hard to explain). And I guess I'm just looking for validation. Thank you. Amanda

Hey there - I was going to suggest the schluter edging as well - we used it on a floor, and a friend has it in her kitchen and while I'm not like "WOW! Awesome edging!" I basically don't notice it. It comes in an awesome copper color that blends perfectly into slate... but that's probably not helpful to you! Also comes in brass-like and brushed stainless-like. We used a mix of tile behind the stove and beadboard everywhere else, so wood was already in the mix. That being said, we used .5" x 1" sticks to frame out the subway. I hated it at the time, but now, again, don't really notice it. May not be for everyone, but here's a pic so you can see what I'm talking about - we did buy the bullnose pieces for where the tiles are next to the painted (orange) wall - but needed a transition between the beadboard and tile - bullnose wouldn't have worked well and the tiles and beadboard are different thicknesses, so they didn't make a smooth transition on their own.

None of my neighbors are handy, unfortunately, so finding one with a wet saw would be harder than finding one who cuts their own grass. That’s why I gave it a few months ago to my friend, who has a lot of construction going on in his neighborhood. Thanks for the offer, enduring. It’s very kind of you. I do go to Iowa about once a year for work, but that is in the summer. I hope to get this resolved sooner, or I could be contacting you! Lowe’s won’t do it unless it is their tile. I would buy a wet saw if I thought I had any possible future use for it, but I don’t. I’m not yet at the point where I’m willing to buy one for ONE tile. I could see buying a belt sander, though: are you taking about a hand-held model? I already have a benchtop model, with a very narrow sanding band, that I used for sanding metal. (Temporarily out of commission, a support fell off last year and I have not yet installed the replacement, which seems to need 6 hands to install.) The same friend above has an old style knife grinder wheel, the kind where the operator sits and pedals to run the wheel (it’s a leftover from his former antique store). He suggested we try that. I don’t know what kind of a grit such wheels have. Does that sound like it might work? I would clean up the edge by hand, with sandpaper taped to a flat formica board, which is how I true up other edges.

@dostk did you ever resolve this? We had a white and gray honed marble mosaic installed and after grouting, the whole area looks completely different. The stone doesn't look anything like the uninstalled mosaic, now it has almost a dull/frosted glass (not shiny) look to it ... is the best way I can try to describe it. Basically it doesn't even read as marble to me anymore. As far as I know, our contractor's installer did not seal it before hand (it was still in the boxes and packing sleeves) and used a sanded grout. The option of sanded or unsanded was never mentioned to us and as newbies we didn't know to ask. Is there anything that can be done to bring the original look back or is this just expected and we should have done a mock up as someone mentioned before?