Let's talk...back splash tile

Man did we have a hard time with this.  Or I should say I had a hard time with this.  I knew what I wanted but I couldn't find exactly what I wanted.  Jim put it perfectly..."you want a tile that does not exist!".  But I wasn't giving up hope.  I knew I wanted a solid color throughout, shiny and unique.  That doesn't seem hard to find right?  HA!  Think again my friends. 

We went to many-a tile shops on our weekend 'burbs trips.  I was in complete sticker shock!  I couldn't believe my eyes with the prices per square feet these places were asking!  It was insane!  So add to the prices and not being able to find what we were looking = many a depressing trips.  But we kept pressing on.  I had read about a place called The Tile Shop that offered affordable but great looking tile.  As luck would have it, they just opened up two shops in Massachusetts, one being less than 20 minutes from us.  It was fate I tell you! 

The shop itself is awesome.  Tons of displays of actual kitchens and bathroom which was helpful since you could visualize what the tile would look like installed and they really cater to DIYers, which you know I love.

So what did we end up getting? What was the tile that was like a chupacabra or sasquatch?? We went with the penny round tile in moss (it reads green for some reason on the computer screen but is more of a greyish blue in person).

We will be using an unsanded dove grey grout (also from The Tile Shop).

And to cap off the top of the penny rounds to give it a finished look, we will be using a 3/8" pencil marble tile (also from The Tile Shop).

We decided to forgo the traditional 4" granite back splash in favor of using the back splash tile 6" up from the counters.  Buuuut of course we didn't count on the electrical outlets getting in the way....details schmetails!  Sooo it was either go above or below the electrical outlets.  We went for below.  How'd we figured that out?  By the really complicated method of holding up the tile against the wall to see how it looked both ways.  The tile is getting installed Tuesday.  So check  back next week for how this will all look once installed.