Tiles, Upstands or Glass on my Kitchen Walls - Help me decide ...

[metrobaby]

Help - DH and I are no good at colour matching and are very indecisive. We would love a bit of MN guidance.

So far we are having an IKEA white kitchen like this - www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/categories/departments/kitchen/tools/kitchen_rooms_ideas/

Our worktop will be like this - www.stonemasters.co.uk/Worktops/Silestone/129/Marron%20Jupiter which has a little sparkle to it

Now we are unsure what to put on the walls between the hob and extractor, worktops and wall cupboards.

Should we do ...

1. Upstands in the same worktop granite. Would it look too much in the area between the hob and extractor? Would it be practical??

1. Metro tiles like these - www.toppstiles.co.uk/tprod965/section280/Metro-Cream-Wall-Tile-20x10cm.html

1. A glass spashback, which i love, like this - www.dgsplashback.com/gallery.html - although I have no idea what colour would compliment everything else ...

I want this area to look lovely - naturally - but also practical in terms of keeping clean and avoiding mess. I bake and the children and DH like to cook so our kitchen can get quite messy.

Opinions would be much appreciated.

I forgot to add - another tile design in the running is this one here www.toppstiles.co.uk/tprod4008/section748/Travertine-Brick-Mosaic.html

And also the ikea kitchen is the STAT one

I like those travertine tiles, but I wouldn't choose them for your kitchen, as I think it could look quite "busy".

I like the Metro tiles but would cream tiles go with white cabinets?

A granite upstand is ok but you would need very hardwearing paint above it. Also could be a bit much used as a large splashback behind the cooker - I'd probably put a metal splashback there instead, if using an upstand.

Overall I think a glass splashback is best in terms of ease of cleaning - as there are no grout lines to get grubby. Also more light reflective than having bare walls with an upstand. I'd probably be boring and go for white to go with the cabinets...but a pale green/blue (like the natural colour of glass) would go too, I think.

We put corian between our cooker and extractor - it looks great even tho its black.

We had originally wanted glass splashbacks but I found the display ones looked really grubby behind the glass and I was worried that would happen to ours.

Hi,
We put upstands in the same granite (black) above the main units. While we did not have a hob issue, we have a sink against a wall rather than a window; we put a half height splashback because I thought a full one would look too heavy. In retrospect, the wall above the splashback gets grubby, and a full height block would have been better (we have wall cupboards above).

If you do go for tiles instead, be really careful with the grouting. You may need to put a sealant on it. Good luck with the decision.

We are doing our kitchen. Walls and floors have loads of metro tiles in different colours. We have ordered ones in a deep blue/green and I have ordered a glass splashback from a local window manufacturer which will be the same colour as the tiles.

we've recently completed our kitchen - stainless steel splashback behind oven, upstands around the worktops with washable paint on the walls. The paint was recommended to us- Dulux Endurance - goes on really well and so far has coped well with any splashes. And it's a lot cheaper than the Dulux Kitchen paint.

The first metro tiles definitely.

We had a granite upstand and it was a mistake. I am a slightly messy cook and the walls got realy dirty. Would definitely go with tiles or glass.

I got those cream Metro tiles recently and they look very smart and modern.

I believe Travertine is a form of limestone, so it will be somewhat absorbent of dirt and grease, and will dissolve or be eroded by kitchen cleaners that remove limescale.

The metro tiles are lovely and would really go with your units and worktop. Upstands in the same granite would be overkill, the glass is too modern for the style of unit and the travertine tiles dont go. IMHO of course!