I had some questions come in recently for a kitchen backsplash in a remodel that was under construction, for one of my email consultations.
Since there are always lots of questions about backsplashes around here, I thought I’d share this solution with you, design lovers. It can work really well for a unique situation like this one.
Here’s the kitchen in progress…..
Kitchen range wall with graphic tile floor | carlaaston.com
View into kitchen being remodeled. Sink at the window, refrigerator on the back wall, range on the right wall with a peninsula bar. | carlaaston.com
View looking into the kitchen from the living room. You can see the kitchen windows and sink and the peninsula bar extending out there. carlaaston.com
Peninsula bar at this kitchen being remodeled. carlaaston.com
Kitchen Design Info
Just to give you a little further info, there is a beverage fridge in a cabinet going on the end of the cabinet run there at the sink wall. There will also be a special upper cabinet there, although it was yet to be designed.
She wanted that section to feel different from the rest of the kitchen, something more sectioned off and didn’t know quite how to do that effectively.
Here was an elevation that was done for it so far.
It’s a pretty color, right? It’s Behr, Tsunami.
This kitchen will have white slab countertops, Pietra Danae. The new floor is in, a graphic patterned tile, as you can see in the pics above.
Kitchen Questions and Concerns
It’s time to decide on the splash and although she likes the idea of slab material so as not to compete with the floor pattern, she doesn’t know if she should do tile instead or where to stop and start the splash with either material on both sides of the kitchen.
She’s got the peninsula there that goes beyond the upper cabinets on the range side. She wants to possibly do floating shelves there and then on the sink wall too on both sides.
So, how does she effectively tie together all these details for a cohesive design that probably should have been addressed way before this point in the job? :-)
Backsplash material and height?
Where to stop and start backsplash?
How to make the wine cabinet area more special and separate feeling from the kitchen?
Where to place the floating shelves and how does the backsplash integrate with those?
The Answers
Backsplash Material
First of all, I agreed with her on the slab material for the backsplash.
It’s not a big kitchen and a busy pattern on the walls too would have diminished the floor pattern and competed. Not only that, she is really making the biggest statement with the color, so I think more crisp white is needed to really make that color seem even more impactful.
Height of the backsplash
I’m an almost-anything-except-for-a-4”-high-slab-backsplash person. ANYTHING.
When doing a slab splash, I like to higher or lower than 4”. I’ve gone as low as 2.5” and then at other varying heights, but never 4”.
For this situation, I needed to lay it out to see how to deal with both of the side elevations. It was pretty easy to determine the back wall there with the refrigerator could be slab all the way up to the under side of the cabinets on each side of the fridge.
I really liked going all the way up to the stainless steel hood too. It is just easier to clean. The adjacent side areas though, presented some problems.
If we did slab all the way up to the underside of the cabinets, where would it end at the peninsula? She didn’t really like the idea of stopping it with the uppers and what if she did some floating shelves there?
And it looks like the cabinets stop short of the door framing on the left, so there will be a little gap if they align with the upper cabinets, which is what I typically advise everyone to do.
There are two big switch plates on each side that would need to be cut out too. Ugh. I like as few interruptions in the splash as possible, especially when doing slabs.
So, here were two options I gave her for this wall. One with a curve and one straight.
I prefer the curved splash, but it would work either way. I like the 8” height on the sides, it provides good wall protection and misses the switches altogether. The outlets will be on the splash looks like, it would be nice if those were horizontal, but they might not want to change that at this point. I’d just make sure there is enough slab to extend beyond the top of the outlet.
The splash can run all the way from one end of the countertop to the other then, without stopping short at the upper cabinets and it looks perfectly normal and well planned.
She could do a lower splash at 2.5” high, but there isn’t as much protection then and I feel like the height is part of the design feature with the curves.
Sink / Window Wall
There are several things to consider here, the custom upper cabinet, the floating shelves and the window area.
I like the idea of taking the slab up to the window, repeating what we did at the range basically. Then she can take that same splash idea and use it on the rest of this wall too.
I definitely want to see the upper and lower cabinet aligned vertically on the end, first of all.
I also like the idea of adding brackets on both sides of the wine cabinet that go to the countertop and having the slab backsplash butt into that on the right. Then, painted paneling as the splash in this area, to match the cabinet color, will make this area feel more separate and special.
Because of the lower slab splash now, she can put her floating shelves anywhere.
I recommended only doing them on the open right side of the sink, as it is wider and they won’t feel crowded. I think there needs to be some breathing room visually on the walls and the other wall space was not that ample to really make an impact for shelving.
I think it might feel a little cluttered with floating shelves in 3 places here.
I can’t wait to see how this kitchen turns out! She has made some really striking selections and I think it will be a beautiful kitchen.
If you have questions like this and need just a bit of an interior designer’s eyes on your project, check out my Designed in a Click email consultation service.