You all are so kind! Thank you so much! Your words mean more to me than you can ever, ever, know. I do feel better now that the decision has been made. However, today we went tile shopping and now we are both completely gun shy of color. If it has the slightest hint of yellow in it... it is out! We are also second guessing the use of Spanish tiles now. Although I only showed you the field tiles, there was also a behind-the-range and an around-the-hood deco tile arrangement. We are now thinking that no colorful tiles at all are on the order for the day. Now, this is day one mind you, of the new tile search. We spent half of today at it, and haven't seen the answer yet. But I will keep you informed of our progress. We have a few samples on order and we will see what comes of it. I really can't thank you enough!

Ashe 42, I love charcoal slate and these tiles are great. They are rectangular with variation in size of the rectangles, so sort of a more linear look than a lot of traditional square slate tiles. The tile is from Earthstone Gallery in Reno, NV but I don't actually know the brand (ordered them directly from the showroom based on the display). I now have 24 square feet of gently used tile, but it wasn't inexpensive - upward of $20/sq ft as I recall. Argh. Linelle, thanks for the words of support - greatly appreciated! Unfortunately there is some tangential family connection and it is a small community. I don't think they're bad people, it's just not a business model that lends itself to good customer service (we have to fight with them to get itemized cost lists, like for plumbing fixtures, and then consistently find errors - all of which labels us "bad clients"). This crew does good work, so I'm a lot better off than other stories I've heard in that I feel the house will hold up! All the subs live in fear of this builder and their designers, who will cut them off at the drop of a hat if they talk to their clients out of turn, etc. But that is the business model - controlling the clients to get them to agree to what is profitable, and controlling the subs to get them to do what they want, is the bottom line for the relatively low price/sq ft in a more assembly line "semi-custom home" approach. I do feel ambivalent about having made this choice, and honestly had no idea what I was getting into; nonetheless, it was our choice. The good news is that I really like the foreman and many of the subs, so the people who are actually doing the work are great (vs the owners, managers and avaricious designers).

My problem with choosing a tile color that's trendy is that it locks you in to an era and specific accessorizing framework. The close-up of the granite reads much darker than your kitchen shot so I don't know which is closer to reality. Your floor seems to have the effect of a warm travertine. The BS selection ideally would harmonize with the two though working with the granite takes priority. I love Bee's kitchen and agree that tiles are great for bouncing light and livening up the space, but think grey is very trendy. Her selection of a white neutral is perfect because it introduces personality through the Arabesque shape. I'd need to find a color that wouldn't make it hard when I wanted to repaint and take the overall feel in a different direction, so like Bee I would try to introduce personality through shape or use of accent tiles or listello. If you'd consider something other than tile, how about plate glass that can be back painted, etched, or have wall paper inserts that could be changed? Super easy to maintain and no grout to deal with. If you stick with tile, I'd choose one that could be set with very thin grout lines as yucky grout is the pits. You can get gorgeous shell accent tiles, beautiful hand thrown accent tiles, listello, etc running the gamut from feminine, masculine or neutral, very contemporary or traditional. That's why, not knowing you, I say paint, relax and take your time in picking a BS. And it is perfectly fine to not have a BS at all if that's what you'd prefer.

Thank you all so much!!! This has helped so much, both to realize that this really isn't the end of the world, and to help crystallize why it wasn't working for me. The vintage feel with the original top cabinets, exposed brick and wood island and marble countertops is what I'm going for and it just doesn't mesh style-wise. We will live with it for a while, out of necessity. But I'm thinking of getting a subtle carrara marble subway tile, with a light grout! Just FYI- the brick is the chimney (oil burner) which we exposed. It juts out and we can't put cabinets there. So in person it makes sense that there is one column. Plus I love it, and it's a piece of the 1920's house. The vintage schoolhouse shades are from an amazing salvage store in Toronto, called the Door Store (if anyone here is from Toronto.) We live in NYC now, but I grew up there and we brought the shades back on the plane. (My parents used to shop there with me in tow, 30 years ago!) As to the tile, it's hand made in Spain and I think the finish just wasn't right on this batch. What looks like a black line is actually the finish not extending all the way to the ends, so you see the masonry. The sample batch I bought was a very light blue, the lightest that you see in the tile now, with just a teeny unfinished edge. This batch has really large unfinished sections on one side. It really probably was a flaw, and we shouldn't have rushed to put it up just because our guy was coming the next day. Lesson learned!! I've included some more photos, including two befores- one from us and one from the listing. Top cabinets are the originals, just painted. Part of the last minute adjustment in this kitchen was also because the marble guy had told us the original cabinets wouldn't support the marble. Knowing we couldn't get a base cabinet to match the uppers, we went to Ikea and did a two tone look. But that did throw off our plans for a blue-and-white kitchen. I actually did adjust the tile a little, but didn't realize how dark they were going to be. And it was all a crazy rush, because we already didn't have a kitchen sink for 3 weeks when we realized we had to replace the cabinets. To be sanguine, things would be a LOT more serious if there was a problem with the stone, or the cabinets they rest on. Thanks again!! I wish I had found this thread sooner, but will definitely be reaching out as we renovate some more of our house! I have some more 'before' pictures here, on the blog that I did not end up having time to keep up! https://thisoldqueenshouse.wordpress.com/