The backsplash could be the star of your kitchen, if you let it

When designing a kitchen, it’s normal to obsess over appliances, cabinets and counters. But there’s another element that deserves just as much attention: the backsplash.

“They’re often an afterthought,” said George Glasier, a founder of the British kitchen company Pluck. “But they can make or break a kitchen quite often.”

Allison Bryan, the founder of Open Studio Collective, an architecture and design firm with offices in Portland, Oregon, and Bozeman, Montana, echoed that sentiment. “It’s one of the most important parts of the kitchen,” she said. Because it’s a vertical surface roughly at eye level, Bryan continued, “I actually think of it as a piece of art.”

Of course, it’s a piece of art that needs to withstand splashing water, squirting citrus and sprays of spaghetti sauce, so the choice of material is critical.

There are countless options and treatments available, which can dramatically change how a kitchen looks. The starting point should always be a larger design vision — for instance, the color palette you desire, and whether you want the backsplash to blend in or stand out — but once you’ve set the direction, it’s time to explore the possibilities.

Here’s how Glasier, Bryan and other designers have used backsplashes to help create extraordinary kitchens.

If you want your backsplash to blend in with the rest of the kitchen, one of the most common techniques is to continue the countertop material up onto the wall. Slabs of natural stone, quartz or other materials can rise just a few inches above the counter, fill the space between the counter and upper cabinets or even run to the ceiling in kitchens where there aren’t upper cabinets.

This approach is a great option for homeowners who like the look of marble counters but worry about etching and stains, Jones said. In a home in Park City, Utah, for instance, the firm installed solid white quartz counters that are nearly indestructible, but used more finicky Calacatta Arabescato marble with dramatic swirls of gray for the backsplash.

“Our goal was to do something fun and drive personality,” Jones said. “It could be a little more precious, because you’re not chopping or cooking directly on top of it.”

Regardless of what type of material you use for a backsplash, it doesn’t have to be a flat rectangle stuck to the wall. One emerging trend is to cap the top edge of the backsplash with a shelf made from the same material.

When designing an apartment in Manhattan with a compact kitchen, Jess and Jonathan Nahon, principals of the architecture and design firm Sugarhouse, installed a counter, a backsplash and a shelf all made from the same Calacatta Turquoise marble.

“That little shelf creates visual interest,” Jonathan Nahon said. “It’s less about functional storage,” he continued, even though it can be used to hold art, small dishes and candlesticks.

When designing a home in Austin, Texas, Annie Downing, an interior designer, used a similar treatment: She added curves to the ends of a Negresco Quartzite backsplash and applied a thicker finishing cap made from the same material, as well as a shelf above the range.

“The house was new and felt very straight-edged,” Downing said. “We did that simple curve to bring in a nice moment of visual warmth.”

An alternative to stone slabs is ceramic tile. And while white subway tile is popular and a safe, time-tested choice, it is far from the only one. If you want your backsplash to stand out, tile can add a distinctive texture, finish or pattern.

When Sugarhouse was designing a Manhattan townhouse with a neutral color palette and wanted the backsplash to appear special, they chose off-white, purposely imperfect handmade tiles from Clay Imports, including some with a pattern of impressed circles and lines.

“That handmade tile gives a softer appearance,” Jess Nahon said. “Our original idea was to extend the marble from the countertops, but we were worried it was going to look too commercial, so we used this more bespoke product.”

Of course, tiles can be glazed in almost any color, opening up many other opportunities. In a kitchen Pluck designed for author Huma Qureshi in London, the company used simple square tiles but installed them in a pink-and-white checkerboard for a dramatic look.

In a kitchen with yellow cabinets that Pluck built with Stealth Design, tiles glazed with geometric shapes in blue, black and white make the backsplash the center of attention. “It works very well for what they wanted,” Glasier said, “which was something incredibly bold.”

Hanging a large mirror on a wall can help brighten and visually expand almost any room. A mirrored kitchen backsplash can do the same thing, and make the walls above counters almost disappear.

“You create this extra sense of depth,” Glasier said.

Plain mirror is best at creating the illusion of more space, but if you want to add a little character, there are other options.

“It just struck a chord and fit the whole place,” he said.

Almost any impervious material can be used as a backsplash, so don’t assume you have to choose something you’ve seen before. Concrete and terrazzo, for instance, are popular materials for residential flooring and counters, but they can just as easily be used for backsplashes.

Pluck has used a terrazzo-like material made with wood chips from Foresso as a backsplash. Other companies, like IceStone, make materials that use chips of recycled colored glass in a similar way.

When Downing designed a lake house in Austin, she installed a kitchen with concrete counters but covered most of the walls above them with waterproof tadelakt plaster.

Metals such as copper and stainless steel are other options. In a kitchen that Open Studio Collective designed in Portland, a shiny copper backsplash is intended to develop a patina over time.

The result is a showstopping backsplash that cost less than a more traditional option, such as natural stone, Bryan said. That’s even more reason for the homeowner to love it.