Lately we’ve been taking a lot of strides to get our list of projects pulled together in a complete list that includes not only all the areas in our house that are part of the Decluttering Mission of 2012, but also all those “honey do” home renovation projects (both large and small) that are looming in the rear view mirror. Evernote has come in super handy for this so far, and I can’t rave enough about that software. But I’m sure I’ll have way more to say about that another day.

The mantra of the WM Project, “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful” has been ringing in my ears every time I walk into the kitchen. And especially when I’m washing dishes…which I have to admit is far more often than I’d sometimes like. But it’s really gotten me thinking about just what we want to do with our back splash. After 6 years in our house, we’ve just never fully figured out exactly the right look for the space with what I guess you’d call a traditional fitted kitchen.

This is a sorta old pic but I’m so not photographing my kitchen today 😉

We’ve living in a German timber frame farmhouse built in the 1830’s. But we’ve added a lot of more modern touches like our kitchen. I think it still has a warm, farmie feel with the wood. And we’ve got our Italian granite counter tops that are a focal point all on their own.

We do have plans to paint the kitchen sometime in the near future, and are thinking of going with a sandy taupe color — perhaps even on the ceiling. So we don’t want to get too crazy with the backsplash area…but we just can’t keep the way it is. It’s impossible to keep a painted white wall clean behind the food prep areas and the KitchenAid.

We thought about doing some sort of tile, and the idea of a really nice glass tile, like the white one below from Hakatai, but I’m just not totally sold on the idea.

And there’s the idea of doing really cool wallpaper backsplash, putting a big picture on the wall or even just painting it the color of the rest of the kitchen. There is a company called Berlin Tapete which sells a bunch of images in a long format as wallpaper for just that purpose. This one of New York is particularly cool. And you can even have your own images printed.

With wallpaper, you usually want to put up glass or plexiglas over everything to keep it easy to clean. But there are some wallpapers that are treated with a coating that would make them easier to clean.

Clearly we have a lot of brainstorming and idea culminating to do before we get much further. Not to mention actually doing the painting. Who’s up for a painting party? 😉

What kind of backsplash do you have in your kitchen? What direction would you take if you were in our shoes?

See what others are doing to beautify their lives over at Pancakes & French Fries.