Subway tile being installed these days tends to have minimal grouting. Don't have answers to the rest of your questions but I think that "whatever you like" is the real answer. FWIW, the one thing that spells "bathroom" to me is the combination of subway wall tiles and tiny hexagon floor tiles. I'm sure that whatever you choose will be beautiful! I like the crackled look but I've put all my budget into granite and thus am getting HD Daltile.

Thanks Ginad! =) We have matte tiles in one bathroom, and glossy in another, and they both look great. The traditional, classic subway tile has tended to be glossy if that's what you're doing for. I'd always loved the look of tumbled marble subway tiles but since we chose granite countertops, the colouring of tumbled marble wouldn't have worked with it and tumbled marble is higher maintenance. I looked into the Ann Sacks handmade tiles, noticed it came in matte, and presto...the matte/non-shiny look I loved, but in a colour that worked with my granite. I agree with the others that you can get the best of both worlds with a shiny and matte tile combination. But your granite needs to be relatively quiet...not too busy...or busy counters and a busy backsplash will be too many fighting elements. I don't find that our matte backsplash reads too "casual" at all...it all depends on the other elements in your kitchen. I think it's partially because our tiles are also handmade which give it more character and colour variation. If they were machine-made matte tiles I may think otherwise. Yes, I think it would be okay to do a glossy granite island, honed counter for the perimeter with glossy tiles. That may just solve some of your doubts.

I would expect that Calacatta as a field tile would be too expensive for this kitchen. Thanks for getting those mosaics off their website, rebunky. I like the stick mosaic but I'd probably use something more like the 1 x 3 brick. I love squares but I know that's a dated look. The wave tile is dimensional. There's also a hexagon and a mini herringbone mosaic. I'm never quite sure what you can get in which finish from Encore. Confusing website. I'll think about adding color in green and/or red if I do a mosaic. If I was able to get Encore, which would probably involve going to Seattle for an overnighter, I may be able to get a field tile in the Bravo line. Thanks, guys. Next step is getting out to some tile stores.

Not what you are specifically referring for... but I've had this mix of flat and patterned/embossed tiles in my head for a while (its a bit different from matte vs gloss mix, but yields a similarly interesting textural variation), and this seemed like appropriate place to share it, in a thread about matt/gloss textural mixtures. This isn't the backsplash direction we ended up following in our kitchen, (noooo... not me, I ended up with my heart set on something unique, but painfully-expensive from Walker Zanger), but it is one of the "reference" ideas we considered that still stands out to me, both for the mix of textures, and the 2-tone 2-wall effect in the publicity photo: This is a relatively cheap tile (Merola) than can be ordered from HomeDepot or Overstock in several colorways: http://www.homedepot.com/s/merola%2520Antic?NCNI-5 Cheap enough (compared to more "designer-y" tiles) that a large wall-filling installation is not stratospherically expansive?