Not a pro. I have quartz, not quartzite on my countertop and I asked my fabricator about making a matching ledge with the extra for my window sill. At first they thought they could but couldn't plane the piece that thin. It would have been a very thin piece, maybe the thickness of 2 subway tiles. Long story short, I would up tiling the space.

It is my understanding that quartzite is very hard to cut so I would think it too would be difficult to make thinner, especially if you're trying to make it the thickness of a tile.

I agree with tedbixby that your kitchen is beautiful and I would just use tile for the space behind the range.

Quartzite is extremely hard and thus a challenge to fabricate. This is one of the reasons it tends to be one of the more expensive materials on the market. We work with quartzite all the time and would not go down to the 1cm to match the tile. It's too difficult and fraught with problems, breaking the quartzite just one of the many very real potential issues. Good luck with your project.

Ok, that makes total sense. Would you bevel to 2 cm? Or would you pass on doing anything other than the standard edge profiles?

We would not. This material is just too difficult to have a successful outcome. Sorry

Yes, it's all possible, but you better just open your wallet and let your fabricator rummage around a bit.

Just use backerboard behind the tile to build up the wall so the tile is flush with the stone.

I’m with ci_lantro- build out the tile to meet the stone, not the other way around.

Seems to me that would be a better idea.

I think the backboard is a great idea in theory. I would definitely do backboard if I did not have all of those open shelves (if I had installed it first), but CBU would be an expensive option to cut in with all those shelves that cannot be moved easily. You should see what they charge for tile around here. It would be an extra $3 a foot to install the CBU and may not look right with the talent pool we have around here. And I am not that good with my cuts.

I did want to use the stone backsplash as an additional clearance reduction method due to the fact that my stove requires to be out from the flammable portion of the wall a certain # of inches and 3cm of any stone is better than 1cm of tile. Plus we built out the bottom cabinets another inch. However, it may be more trouble than it is worth.

I think that based on the input here, my best bet is to have them do a standard bevel and then I can either use a listello there as a transition to the surrounding stone, or else just skip the stone and donate it to Habitat for Humanity and just do tile the whole way.

Thanks everyone for your ideas and opinions. Once I figure this out I will post back a picture.

Backerboard, not backboard!

I am a fabricator. It would (probably) be possible to cut a bevel in the quartzite to reduce the thickness to the desired dimension. However, the risk would be chipping or cracking of the narrowed area which would effectively ruin the piece or require many hours of skilled handwork to repair. Fabricators can do a lot of custom things but quartzite would not be a good choice for custom details. raising the tile is a much better, zero risk option.

Andrea, is the tiling a DIY job?

IMO, you got the cart before the horse & the shelves/ LED's need to come down. Will make the job 10x easier. No dealing with small cuts, slivers around each and every shelf, trying to maintain spacing and straight grout lines over broken tile lines...

But then I'm not so sure I like adding two backsplash materials, grout line pattern into the mix with shelving that makes a linear statement and a statement hood. Do you have any similar situ visuals that inspired this idea? Looks good so far but I'm afraid the train is bout to jump the tracks w/ all the proposed extra visual stimulation.

Thanks for your suggestions.

Shelves had to be installed on bare walls due to the nature of the floating shelves, I had to remove the drywall and block between the studs for my cabinetmaker to make the shelves as sturdy as I wanted them to be with our 1/3 design we came up with. Now if I removed the shelves and tiled under them, the shelves would need to be remade as they are perfectly flush w cabinets. It's cheaper for me to get the tiler to work around those rectangles (they do it all the time) than to have my cabinetmaker remake the shelves. Nothing has been ideal with this renovation due to the demand versus supply of contractors around here.

My cabinetmaker is a primadonna so it had to be done that way. It's a miracle I got him to build those shelves at all. I went back and forth on doing the tile first and decided that the chances of them breaking tiles was too high so I went this direction. Plus we can't do the tile before the counters and I am waiting waiting waiting for the fabricator....

The tiler should not have problems tiling around the shelves (although it would be more challenging for me) but it would be a bitch to tile around the hood and since the hood is easy to remove and adjust a few cm out we are moving that for him. I interviewed a guy today.

As far as the design, it sounds busy but it will all tie together. Here are some examples of different tiles used in backsplashes. My house has a ton of light so the only thing left white will be the floors and the ceiling. The countertop is light gray. Ubiquitous white is just way too wholesome for my house. I will not have contrasting grout lines whatever tile I choose- seeing all those rectangles like in the pics below gives me a headache. But I won't choose the tile yet until I see how the rest is coming together. Most likely it will NOT be a subway tile.

I think the train jumped the tracks like 4 months ago. : ) Thanks all.