Kitchen Diaries: The quest for tiles

Those cabinets scream '80's don't they?

My parents and I have decided it's time to rennovate the kitchen.  The house is around 30 years old; we've updated a bit- new carpeting throughout plus painting as well.  We've never really touched the kitchen accept for  new flooring (around 10 years ago) and countertop.  This time though we're going for the whole thing.

We've opted for the contractor route through Rona.   The Milton Rona store has just recently changed personnel and has added a kitchen designer. This is the first large-scale kitchen rennovation they've had in a few years.

We've picked our countertop (a charcoal colour), and lighter cabinetry (a vanilla white).  Last night we went shopping for flooring/backsplash tiles.  We've decided on a ceramic floor tile; maybe some kind of combo of the two (either a grey, that would go with both or dark with flecks of white).  We found maybe one floor tile that would go with the colour scheme, a darker charcoal tile; it was nice, but we'd like to see what's on the lighter side of the colour scheme.

The keyword for the backsplash is "dramatic."  There will be an awful lot of it- planning to get rid of the peninsula, and stretch the coutner all along under the windows to the bulkhead; and also put an island in.  Since the countertop/cabinets are pretty simple, there's a bit of room to make a statement. My mother had the idea for some kind of stainless steel.  We found these at Rona along Mavis Rd.:

Peel & Stick staineless steel backsplash tiles.  We chatted with their kitchen designer who priced non-peel& Stick at around $20/ 4 X9 tile- a wee bit expensive for our tastes.  So we're back to square one.  I think we can introduce some colour- I'd like to see a grey-blue or silvery blue kind of blacksplash.  My mom's not a fan of the glass tiles, (I saw some I liked, but she didn't) so we're probably looking at some kind of ceramic tiles.  But nothing has hit us yet; I think we're both waiting for the  "ah ha" moment to look at something and say that would look great in our kitchen.