Thanks, Bill... How about the rest of the non-wet-area walls.. can I just thinset/tile right over all that new, raw sheetrock & mud - or should I prime it first?

I'm the OP. Those marble strips are nice but they only come in white. Since our floor is dark they wouldn't work for us. We ended up going with wood. There was no molding of the right shape or height, especially since we were trying to bridge a height transition: the tile being higher. We bought ranch molding that was designed for window and door frames. If you are not familiar with ranch molding, in profile it has a slope: one side is high and the other side is lower. The installers has to shave some wood off the back to make it fit (to reduce the height), but that was their problem since they had promised they would come up with something nice for us and had not. We had them bring the wood right before the weekend and then we stained and varnished it to match our other moldings. On Monday they came back and installed it. The carpeting is a berber, and the edge is tucked lightly under the lowest edge. The high side butts against the tile/durock and a small caulk line is in between.

What about ending it even further in, and just having it behind the range? You have a floaty cabinet and a floaty counter and a floaty beam...the 'splash might be happier anchored to something. But really, gonna need to see the entire thing to come up with suggestions that are cohesive.

Thank you, very kind words. I am actually very proud of how well it came out, being my first ever vertical tiling effort. The only slight lippage there is, and its not really noticeable is the bottom row where I couldn't use tile leveling clips due to the ledger board. But I'm probably the only one who will ever know it's there. I really enjoyed the large format on the walls for a couple reasons. I was going for a marble slab look and that was the best way to go about it. Few grout lines was another reason. And lastly, just fewer tiles to hang. But putting large tiles up made me very grateful I spent the extra time and effort to make the walls plumb and square. I do love the schluter corner shelves. Sure beats the (in my opinion) dated look of those big bulky tile/carrera corner shelves. The top two are the same model Shelf-E squared off and the bottom is a Shelf-E triangle for my wife to put her foot to help her shave her leg. BTW....the best investment I made for tiling was a suction cup. Absolute game changer.