>the mirror will need to not touch the ledge below it. over time, say 5 years or so, water and cleaning agents will seep up behind the mirror and create a black line at the bottom of the mirror. You need enough space to no allow water to wick up behind the mirror. Kind of puzzled by this. I can see that this would be a big issue for mirrors that come to the countertop, but I have 30 year old mirrors that are actually supported by the backsplash, and they're just now starting to go at the corners, which I don't think has much at all to do with that.

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 )

My house was built in 1948. It was built with plaster walls. When we removed the old cabinets this spring when redoing the kitchen, we were VERY surprised that two walls had backer board or some sort of Masonite over the plaster. We're assuming that the previous owner, who replaced the cabinets in the early 1970's, badly damaged the plaster walls while removing the cabinets and perhaps some wallpaper. The board went under the cabinets we removed by a few inches. Our installer felt it was solid and the new cabinets would hold it firmly against the old plaster walls. They had held fir,lay for the past 32 yrs we have owned the house and had been wallpapered twice with no problems. So we left them and tiled right over the board and painted the larger for- to-ceiling wall that had previously been wallpapered. It looks great and is very solid - no one would ever guess the Rube Goldberg stuff under it.

You didn’t know what you didn’t know. And that's pretty much the rule for every project where a home owner works with a professional. If the home owner knew everything, they wouldn't have to hire anybody. If the professional asks an ambiguous question, and then deliberately skips the industry-standard step of visually confirming the layout with the client, then it's inappropriate to blame the client for not communicating well. This is a question that comes up with literally every single job the fabricator does. They should know how to verify instructions. We have had all sorts of counter tops installed over the years. Every single time, the fabricator would come to the house to do precise templating. And then they'd require that either the home owner or the general contractor sign off on the template before they'd make the first cut. These processes are in place exactly to avoid this type of issue. Yes, there have on occasion been mistakes. But when that happens, the professional eats the cost or finds a way to fix things that is acceptable to all parties.