Like your cabinets and most other things in your kitchen, the backsplash can be both functional and beautiful. Functional because it protects the walls of your kitchen from flying spaghetti sauce and errant blobs of grease.

It can also be beautiful, as it can be crafted from any number of easy to clean materials such as ceramic tiles and stainless steel. Ultimately, it will accent your kitchen and allow you one more design option.

When creating your backsplash consider these materials:

• Natural stone tiles (tumbled marble & travertine)
• Granite or Marble slab
• Glass Tiles
• Stainless Steel Tiles

When you choose a backsplash, make sure that it blends with the fixtures in your kitchen, not your appliances. Appliances will change over time, and with different owners. The fixtures are replaced far less often. You consider the lighting in your kitchen, as this will reflect the surface of your backsplash, thus drawing attention to it. Also consider the fact that your backsplash is going to get dirty. Therefore, if you are thinking about solid light colors they will show the grime and require more cleaning. So, think about stone with texture, such as tumbled marble.