I'm not seeing a current picture witht he sink -- just the one with the paper down on the wood which I understand to be before use. That wall looks like it has a raw end of drywall, not a side that is finished (paper or whatever) or maybe even no drywall. It looks like they tried to smooth joint compound in there, either by itself over your studs and built up or over something less than a full side of finished drywall. Joint compound will turn to mud (that's what they call it when it's wet -- hence the verb to "mud" the walls) and dissolve away if it gets wet. Paint will only seal the surface, and if water gets behind it -- well, I dare say it is probably worse than damp sheetrock, which is worse than damp green board. You say they had to sheer away your window sill. Did that sill come below the window too? I don't think you've got clean drywall there. I think you've got a really poor job of mudding and an even worse job of sealing the joint. That's my guess.

I will disclaim this post by telling you am no expert. I am a diyer. We are doing our kitchen and trying to stay with a more vintage style look. I also hate the idea of a "traditional" style backs plash of tile, stone, glass and everything else I keep seeing. We are doing wood behind our sink and counter area to keep the water from damaging the wall. I know it seems counter intuitive - wood - but if you seal it right, wainscoting of some sort has been used for many generations. I decided to stain mine, much like the pic I added below. [Rustic Bedroom[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/rustic-bedroom-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_715~s_2111) by College Station Home Builders Ellis Custom Homes LLC The wood is easy and cheap. It comes in tons of profiles at HD and Lowes, look for the 3/4 pine profile boards. Most all the profiles you can use either side of the board for different profile options. It is kind of time consuming to sand, stain and do many coats of poly (I did 5 on mine), but if you painted it would probably be much quicker, I just love the look of color stain (I did almost the same color as the photo above). I did the entire 8' (from counter to ceiling)wall and another 4' (from ceiling to floor) section on the other corner for under $150, another $30 for stain and polyurethane. As far as the stove, I am not sure if you can or should run the wood behind it. For aesthetics, we are putting a vintage tile right behind the stove. Honestly I have yet to find a new tile that looks nice or would go in our kitchen, however, I have found plenty of neat looking old stuff in reclamation warehouses and even on Ebay that is nice and even cheap. I am personally only running the tile up a bit, but I am one of those horrible OTR microwave people (unavoidable in my tiny kitchen) so I wont need much tile, probably only 5 6x6 pieces. But my point is there are other places to shop to find some really neat and unique stuff besides the expensive tile shops. Good luck.

didn't have time to read all the answers. I have no backsplash and have never regretted it...been over 6 yrs. It is painted with BM matte...which has ceramic in it. It is as beautiful now as it was when first painted. I love the fact that I can showcase other things ...art etc in my kitchen and no competition. Also if I ever want to change it is as quick as a paint brush...expense is minimal..paint only ! All in all I think it is serene as you point out . Here is one pick. Since I have a lot of high heat cooking in my kitchen..built in deep fat fryer as well as gas cook top I can definitely speak to the longevity of paint only. c ( more at this album )

Paul, You are absolutely correct that putting a strip of granite - no matter how short - eats into the countertop usable area. Another reason I dislike those 4" granite BS concepts. However, you can insist that for the rise that the granite be cut down in thickness so that the strip applied as BS is 0.5" instead of 1.25". Furthermore, granite shops do this in our area as PaulineS has advocated many many times (she's another one in Boston-parts). I have a sheet glass backsplash and the reason I fell onto sheet glass was because I couldn't for the life of me fathom what I wanted to do for a backsplash on that wall - -- I didn't want the granite strip on that wall because on this sink-range wall the granite top is even less than the typical 25.5" (unfortunately located doorway) and I didn't want to lose useful inches to the granite strip and I didn't know at the time that the granite could be sliced down as I mentioned above, -- after several months of no backsplash experience, I knew that that just wasn't cutting it for a primary workspot (and by "primary", I mean used at most 3 times a week!) so I know full well of what you speak. 30" x 32 (34?) will be good and if you install a thin granite edge, it won't be much worse than the tile you were thinking of (3/8", yes?) but will look better in my opinion. My glass sheet is 3/8" thick and it doesn't feel like it cramps my style at the counter at all. Re: the DW. Where do you envision storing your dishes? Based on something I learned from our remodel - not planned for, learned because of sheer, dumb luck - is that I LOVE having the DW next to or right across from the storage parts. My dishes go from DW to the drawers right next to the DW and some other key storage pieces, into the drawers right across from the DW. It is brilliant. (I do have to walk a step to get to the glass and cups storage which is on the other side of the sink from the DW so that is a minor bugaboo - compared to th dishes). So, whether you keep it or think of moving it, i would think in terms of where you think the dishes or glasses etc. are going to be. If they're next-to, you're golden, baby! It looks good to me, as my plan would be to keep pots and pans on the LHS of the range, and the eating dishes on the RHS (which is right across from the DW & so brilliant), glasses and stuff perhaps in the 18"ers (glass door, no doubt) across the penin so you'd move the glasses from the dishes to the ctrtop and thence to their home in the front of the peninsula. So, yes, I do think it looks good. Scared yet? But if you're planning to move the DW, I'd plan for it to go relative to the dishes home (minimize this norm, in other words).