I am one of those who is "guilty" of covering up my brick fire place! When I moved here from Europe in 1998 we bought a 1970's built house with the full 70's details in the family room- mock dark wood panelling and a brick fire place wall. As soon as I was able to, I got rid of both features. We disguised the panelling by having the painter spackle the panel grooves and then paint.We had the brick sheetrocked and painted it a darker colour to coordinate with the walls. At the same time, we removed the wood insert (been there,done that), and installed a gas insert.Voila, we had a whole new, less dated room. Some brick fire place walls are wonderful, especially if the home is truly old, like our UK house, but some just scream 70's! That's just my experience, each to their own.

I've tried a number of different methods to strip paint from brick and the only thing I've found that really works is sandblasting. Scraping/sanding doesn't work because the brick is so porous that the paint really sinks in. Chemical strippers don't work well because of all the pits in the brick's surface where the paint gets stuck, and even on the smooth surface you can still see the tint of the paint - it's like when you clean a paint brush and the color just keeps coming out from it. Sandblasting does a great job. It's not a DIY project since if you dont know what you are doing you can end up with an uneven surface. A good sandblasting outfit can protect the surrounding area so that when they are done everything is clean. You can try a few methods but I think you will quickly come to the conclusion that they don't work very well.

If you are selling I think a border has a lot more chance of feedback than no border. Meaning, if the bs was just subway, then there probably won't be comments like "I wish there was a border" because they don't know what they are missing, but if there is a border and potential buyers might say " I don't like the border". Buyers are quite picky and insane these days. Been there, done that. If you think you aren't selling, then by all means do what you like. Life is too short to just be designing your home for a potential possibility you might sell it. No matter what, it will look clean, current, and fresh. And those are always good.

I just put in the Horus Art Cristalli tile in biscuit and I love it. I am awaiting the grout (which I will do in a matching color). I have honey/toffee maple cabinets in a Shaker style door, Crema Astoria granite (a creamy granite with white, black, and garnet areas, and with some subtle but not overpowering gray/silver movement). Even though I love clean lines, I chose this tile over the Tiffany (which is a straight subway) because it has a handmade appearance (the lines are kind of wavy, which go with the movement in the granite). It also has a little sparkle, which my granite does as well. I did not do a border or accent in my backsplash; I used only the HA Cristalli subways. I don't have a big kitchen - it's 10x10, only 15" from cabinet to counter. I chose to leave it plain as I want the focus on the granite and not the tile. I am so happy that I did! When I get a chance I will post some pictures.