Often the side walls aren't tiled these days. Just painted. Because yours is quite close to the sink, you may want to tile it tho. You can use Schluter track to finish off the edges if you can't find a matching bullnose or pencil tile. Schluter track comes in different finishes such as white, cream, shiny and matt metal. a brushed stainless look would match your pulls and sink. The other thing, is you can plan it out so that a finished bevel edge is done at the end. That will depend what size tile ends up being in the corner, but with luck, that could work also.

I would probably just paint the wall since you will have to decide where to finish off the tile if you start doing that wall.

Thanks, but I really want to tile those sides since we splash a lot. Went back down to the tile place and are thinking 4x4 light travertine might be best. It will leave us with a strip of about 3/4" that will have to be painted. Don't know how we can do that to match this 9-year-old paint job.