Ashe 42, I love charcoal slate and these tiles are great. They are rectangular with variation in size of the rectangles, so sort of a more linear look than a lot of traditional square slate tiles. The tile is from Earthstone Gallery in Reno, NV but I don't actually know the brand (ordered them directly from the showroom based on the display). I now have 24 square feet of gently used tile, but it wasn't inexpensive - upward of $20/sq ft as I recall. Argh. Linelle, thanks for the words of support - greatly appreciated! Unfortunately there is some tangential family connection and it is a small community. I don't think they're bad people, it's just not a business model that lends itself to good customer service (we have to fight with them to get itemized cost lists, like for plumbing fixtures, and then consistently find errors - all of which labels us "bad clients"). This crew does good work, so I'm a lot better off than other stories I've heard in that I feel the house will hold up! All the subs live in fear of this builder and their designers, who will cut them off at the drop of a hat if they talk to their clients out of turn, etc. But that is the business model - controlling the clients to get them to agree to what is profitable, and controlling the subs to get them to do what they want, is the bottom line for the relatively low price/sq ft in a more assembly line "semi-custom home" approach. I do feel ambivalent about having made this choice, and honestly had no idea what I was getting into; nonetheless, it was our choice. The good news is that I really like the foreman and many of the subs, so the people who are actually doing the work are great (vs the owners, managers and avaricious designers).

I wouldn't mix in another stone. Either run the same countertop material up the wall as a backsplash, or use a simple subway tile. If you use a grout color close to the tile (white can be hard to keep clean but a light grey works well) it isn't visually busy.

with the caramel floor and darker cabinetry I would try to meld the tones. there are things like mother of pearl [also gives a little sheen], maybe hex shape for interest and choose a multi tonal selection....some sort of glass in an amber shade. Your home looks slightly formal.....I would look at mother of pearl...see what shapes /configurations it come in these days......it could be the right detail /interest as everything looks a bit basic and plain so far....and no window here. A porcelain tile would marry the browns, and is a beautiful tile but you are staying away from contrast, so you say. The brown on brown is something to work with and I like the potential to play it up.

To be honest, we have had a lot of problems with Compaq. I would not recommend them. I do like the material but it has been a headache. We also just got a new piece of quartz that was supposed to match and the new one has black dots which was does NOT match any of the other pieces. They claim that it is supposed to have black dots but we would never have ordered this material with Black dots that does not match our other pieces. We are really disappointed. We are in the south Florida area.