Is the counter top being replaced and the left side of your range has the new material?

Hi Chispa, House is a townhouse built in 1996, trying to modernize the look. As far as decorating style, I like modern/contemporary, nothing too funky. Something that would be cohesive with the rest of the kitchen, and bring the kitchen to life a little. It's very white right now.

i'm sure you'll get a slew of "white subway tile" suggestions. I like this one from Tilebar. Nabi Rocky Edge in gun metal. go over there and grab some samples. you get 5 for $5. The Nabi line comes in this Arctic blue too. grab a sample of it also I also like the soft blue color you have on the walls. Could do something like the blue? These are from Heath Ceramics. diff blue tones in a stacked horizontal or vertical layout or you could do any other color. these are both 2x10 tiles in more of a handmade look. this one has the mushroom tones: grayish/taupe tile from Winchester. Dunwich, in a crackle glaze since everything is solid, you could also opt for a diff shape tile or take a subway and do a herringbone pattern. there are thousands of options. could you narrow down the choices a bit??

What a charming house! You've done great. I had somehow missed this thread up to this point, and I did not read all (or even a significant fraction) of the previous responses. I have a 1910 house and also don't like subway tile. But I wanted something that fit the era of the house. I ended up going with a simple (and extremely cheap) 4x4 white field tile capped with a contoured molding tile (that almost but doesn't quite match the field tile because I couldn't find a molding I like from the a manufacturer that did a 4x4 field tile that was 4x4 rather than 4.25 x 4.25. Adds to the charm). I have very few uppers, though. I think a 4x4 white (or gray, since you seem to think white is too stark) field tile with black or charcoal pencil liner would be cool. These all show a pencil liner with subway because that's what the popular kids are doing, but it would work as well with a 4x4 or other basic field tile.