Help me choose tiles - pics

[letmeeatinpeace]

Last minute decision, please help me choose the pattern to lay these tiles! Its for kitchen backsplash

1- all vertical
2 - vertical - horizontal- vertical
3 - all horizontal

Grout will be white, so the lines will be softened.

I know a lot of you asked for horizontal staggered, but I feel it doesn't match the kitchen, and is to 'plain'.

And I definitely think the options that reach too high, almost touching the cabinet don't work. I prefer the ones with a bigger gap under the cabinet

I'm a bit boring. No 5 brick bond for me. :)

Hmm maybe No 5 is growing on me.

Does anyone know if grout can be coloured darker afterwards? I've got white grout but I'm not sure it will work if I go for No 5. If it doesn't, is it possible to darken it slightly?

But it looks way better than the others! Can’t you exchange your white grout for darker?

Vertical in rows (top picture) all day long.

Horizontal staggered.

Horizontal staggered is the only one that looks right to me. All the others are really weird.

Brick!

Or possibly two vertical, top one horizontal if you are adamant you want vertical tiles. It stops the tiles finishing too close to the cupboards.

But. Brick - and I'm not a fan of brick laid tiles. But it is far superior to the others in the area you've got.

Well the people have spoken (and DP and DM strongly agree) - horizontal staggered (brick bond) it is! I can see that objectively it does look right for the space - maybe something about it being staggered draws the eye horizontally, which will feel more grounding specially as the space has such high ceilings.

Thanks all for your input!

Oh, and I did a last min dash to buy some slightly darker (silver grey) grout, so that should work fine. I'll post a pic of the results :)

I'm glad I did this test drive as we almost just went along with my initial idea of all vertical - it looked good on photoshop, but v different in real life.

Thanks all for your feedback! The tiles are up, and the staggered effect looks good.
Not sure if the spacing /grout line is too thick?? Oh well, too late to change it!

It still needs to dry out a bit, so will look a little lighter, and the grey line running along the top of the tiles will be painted white to match the walls.

It looks lovely!

That works really well. Good choice.

It looks great OP

@letmeeatinpeace it looks great. Grouting line is fine!!