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		| Originally posted by mmm3587 If you own the place, and there's really not much surface area, consider a nice tile bar area/backsplash/other surround.  It's easy as fuckall to slap tile on these areas with a little practice, and you can experiment and consider how different things look without too much concern (e.g. throw a few of them on the horizontal bar area for a few days, or attach pictures of them (or swatches, if you are handy enough to do it without it being permanent).
 
 I have seen some very cool approaches in such situation involving what is called "subway tile."  It comes in square foot sheets of 16 pieces by 16 pieces or so .  Within the sheets the tiles are random, mostly a dullish cream (you can get different finishes, though) with some very lights swirls and spots of light, bright colors (pinks, yellows, reds).  I really like the small size of the individual tiles.
 
 Summary: there are all sorts of cool things that you can do with tile.
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  Thanks for the input, all (except flinty -- there's no mildew!!!!!!!).  The counters are tile now and I can't afford to rip them out so any tile stuff I might do would have to coordinate.  I'm not so good at that. 
I will need to think more.  I'm kind of worried blue won't go with the black parts of the tile and the appliances.