What backsplash could tone down the heaviness of my maple cabinets?
My kitchen is very useful and easy to cook in. But the maple cabinets are quite…present and the kitchen feels a bit heavy. (These very dark countertops, eek!) Current trends say, ”paint your kitchen cabinets!” but we want to avoid this. We’ve been designing our home toward a midcentury aesthetic with a lot of natural textures, and I’d like first to get rid of this very noisy tile on the kitchen walls. Given the constraints of keeping the maple and the dark counters, any ideas of what to do with that tile? Anybody have suggestions as to what I should replace it with? Also, any light fixture suggestions? (We have the problem of being able to see while doing dishes at night.) I’m not opposed to funky suggestions! Thanks!
Comments (23)
Related Discussions
Please HELP! Maple Cabinets & White Subway Tile Backsplash
Comments (8)nik, Welcome! A couple of thoughts: if you love absolute black but are worried about maintenance, look at a leathered finish. It is much more forgiving than the polished finish to smudges, etc. There might be a reason you aren't seeing a lot of pictures with your color cabs and white tile - you might be right and it might be too bright. Try to get some sample tiles and bring them home and tape them to the wall to get an idea. You might find the answer really fast! Check the Finished Kitchen blog and Backsplash slideshow (link to FKB below, backsplash slideshow at FKB) for more pics to see if anyone else has done it - there are lots of successful rule breakers here! Maybe consider an off-white subway. Again checking a sample in your kitchen with your cabs and counter will help. If you both love the glass mosaic you might be able to incorporate it in a small area - like behind the backsplash or as an accent with 2 or 3 rows of mosaic between rows of subway - there are some examples in the finished backsplashes. Finally, congrats on making it this far! Here is a link that might be useful: Finished Kitchens...See MoreWild backsplash. Inspired, or Delerious? pic heavy
Comments (36)As I posted in another of your threads, your inspiration kitchen is all about the curved aqua river flowing through that kitchen. It's zingy and zen at the same time. Without it, the entire design falls apart and would need other choices than the grey to pull it back together. If you keep picking choices that don't hearken back to your inspiration, maybe you really don't want your inspiration. There's nothing wrong with having YOUR kitchen be a reflection of YOU rather than being inspired by someone else's work. But, analyze WHY you are shying away from using color. You can do a room with only neutrals, but it's actually harder than doing a room with color. You have to carefully balance texture and tone and proportion and color undertones. If you are at all uncertain of making appropriate choices in any of those elements, then you either need to get in person help from a designer, or you need to do the fallback of copying something that someone else has done successfully. Just be certain that when you are using something as inspiration, that you really do understand why the room works, and which elements are key to achieving that look. That aqua counter, for instance....See MoreHow to make your own tile and back-splash (pic heavy)
Comments (25)I'm not sure how I came across this post, I think it was displayed on the right side and I clicked on it being intrigued by the tile making. I was at one time interested in working with papercrete and hypertufa. But after enlisting my brother, who wasn't as enthusiastic, and my niece, who poured cement down my laundry room sink, which original to the house had lasted 70 years, and ruining three blenders, my interest waned. True to form, if I come upon difficulty in a project, I think of it as a sign for me not to continue. And really, after all these years of trying various crafts that result in crap, I should know better. I also should have known better than to ask my brother, who always says it can't be done to any of my unique design ideas. And I should have known better than to ask my niece, who once stayed up all night before having to drive to LA for an art show, cutting mat after mat after measuring once, twice, sometimes ten times, but always coming out with the wrong size. I think we both have math dyslexia. I should video us trying anything crafty to see where we go wrong. I think both of us having ADHD might have something to do with it. Sorry for the backstory and run on sentences. So, I just wanted to see if you continued with your venture. And to say sorry for whatever tragedy occurred to cause you to have to move to Florida. Not that there is anything wrong with Florida, but it isn't Panama. Which is one of my favorite places in the western hemisphere. I hope no one is upset that I brought up a seven year old post....See MoreHow to tone down granite/backsplash?
Comments (17)Sunfeather, I don't have very good pictures of the kitchen. It was a remodel, not new build. The cabinets are yellow toned, and not wanting to add anymore yellow, I went with a taupe/cream. Here is a phot before the crown molding and light rail were added. The next is a picture I just took for you with poor light, sorry. This mosaic has matte ceramic, crackle ceramic jewel, and crackle glass tiles. The three medallions are matte ceramic with crackle glass. The brown looks redder than it really is. Check for Encore Ceramic tile near you. They have nice earth tones....See More
palimpsest
last yearlast modified: last yearAll I did was block out the tile in a white pulled from the picture. You could use a color but a plain color. I would also paint the ceiling in flat paint instead of semigloss.
aldorman thanked palimpsestaldorman
last yearYou all are so incredibly helpful! The visual of a lighter color over the tile makes it obvious just changing the tile to something more mono and light is going to make all the difference. I’ll see what kind of trouble the four-inch backsplash is to remove, but I wouldn’t have recognized that was a big part of the problem without your help. And I just ordered several samples of some square tiles in cream/whiter shades as well as a couple of greens. But I’m happy for more recommendations and specific guidance! Here are pictures of the counter and tile (I do not love this tile—I’m hoping we can change this tile, which runs through my entire home, in about two years, so this is’t a design element to factor in heavily).
The kitchen looks into the dining room (pictured-excuse the piles!) and our hearth room (not pictured—we are refacing our hearth with white brick and replacing our 1970s brass country stove with a black stove so this area’s a bit of a mess).
Thank you for the ideas on lighting; I’m definitely going to look at costs on canned lights and some task lights. And I’ll keep an eye out for a statement sort of light to replace the current track light.
everdebz
last yearlast modified: last yearI notice in Marlene's link, the tile only goes part way up. I think the tiny tiles might work in a tiny retro way. This view sort of shows what I mean: part tile and part paint.
https://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/Backsplash-Tiles/21169/subcat.html
Cozy and Rustic Green Colored Kitchen - Herndon, VA · More Infoaldorman thanked everdebzbtydrvn
last year
MarleneM