Kitchen Backsplash Ideas with White Cabinets

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Last updated: July 7, 2023

White cabinets have a timeless and classic appeal that is too hard to resist. White color is a favorite among homeowners because of its Light Reflectance Value (LRV) of almost 100%. It’s no surprise that there are plenty of white kitchen backsplash ideas to consider.

LRV or Light Reflectance Value is the measurement of light reflected by a color. A color reflects higher amounts of light if it has higher LRV, so if you want to make the most out of the natural light in your kitchen, or you don’t have natural light at all, white cabinets are your best choice.

Gorgeous kitchen backsplash ideas with white cabinets go well with almost any kitchen backsplash. The right backsplash is a personal style choice.

I was hoping you could look at some of my ideas below that you can use as inspiration for your next remodel. This article will help you with my list of beautiful kitchen backsplash ideas. The perfect time to get started is now!

Table of Contents

Stay Trendy with Herringbone Pattern

If you pick the right texture and color, any style can complement and work well with a herringbone pattern. In farmhouse kitchens, for example, you can build a herringbone backsplash with white grout and white patterned tile. There are many different patterns to choose from for the overall look.

Black or dark gray ceramic tiles will work best for your herringbone pattern for modern kitchens and provide a neutral look. To achieve a more contemporary appeal, you can even go for bold colors, textured, and bright color tiles.

Thanks to its timeless and attractive pattern, the herringbone tile backsplash is becoming a more popular choice. Unlike the rest of the trendy designs for backsplash, you can trust the herringbone pattern to stay in style for a long time.

Some enterprising DIY (do it yourself) home designers have adopted a light blue fish scale for the ultimate unique backsplash. They’ve then gone ahead to add standard subway tile in white wall color with the unique shape of herringbone patterns in a dark brown floor tile. The kitchen remains the perfect place for some bold experimentation.

The pale blue herringbone backsplash that the designer Carla Aston used brought a calming and peaceful feel to the duo-toned kitchen. Even if the base cabinets are in warm brown, the backsplash with its calm blue color still looks seamless in the overall design. A chevron pattern is also a great alternative.

Accentuate with Metal

We can use stainless steel as a backsplash to create a modern look and décor. A metallic solution will surely save the day if you find tiling too fussy or too 20th century. There are two ways to use metal as an accent for the rest of the kitchen walls. To develop a more cohesive look, you can make your backsplash out of a solid sheet of stainless metal.

Stainless steel tiles are also great options to add dimension to your dream modern kitchen. The best thing about stainless steel is that it is easy to clean, durable, and can handle even high heat well, which makes it functional and fashionable at the same time.

Brushed stainless steel can make for a space-age backsplash channeling a touch of industrial chic that keeps up with the likes of geometrically acute layouts and handleless cabinetry. To soften the effect, you can soften your stainless-steel backsplash with marble and wooden countertops.

Choose a Striking Color Scheme

If you prefer a more striking backsplash color scheme for your modern kitchen design, you can choose two tones that contrast each other. The kitchen by Sebring Design Build features a dramatic backsplash in charcoal gray stacked stone and bright white cabinetry.

By having the backsplash cover the ceiling down to the countertops, the designer made a sizable accent wall that looks like they carved it straight from the earth. They used minimalist floating shelves for the upper cabinets so that the backsplash is the only one that gets all the attention it deserves rightfully.

Some homeowners opt to pair a stacked stone backsplash with white kitchen cabinets to achieve a more natural appearance. Brown and beige stone splash can complement your traditional white kitchen cabinets. Under-cabinet lighting can also beautifully stress the texture and color of the stone. Natural stone is your best choice if you want your kitchen design to have a more earthy ambiance.

Any kitchen idea starts with a dream before it becomes one of the many favorite kitchen backsplash ideas on your list.

Make the Most of Marble Slab’s Classic Appeal

The opulent and relaxed aesthetics of marble look and feel right at home in various interiors. Using a gorgeous white marble backsplash is undoubtedly the true epitome of a timeless and classic appeal.

The beautiful character and stunning natural patina of marble add a soft touch of grandeur if paired with your white kitchen cabinets. It also has natural variations that will ensure that your space doesn’t end up looking too uniform, and thus uninteresting.

To make the most out of the natural characteristics of marble, don’t just use your stove or sink as your only play area. Lisa Staton, an interior designer, used a marble slab to cover the entire wall at the back of the stove. No backsplash gets added to the rest of the walls to avoid overwhelming effects. A matching marble countertop can also complement this.

Studio McGee also has a white kitchen design that feels and looks like a breath of fresh air. Elegant backsplash made from white slab marble is a natural for white cabinets.

You can also pick matching marble white countertops that will pull the entire space together. You can switch Upper cabinets out for thick wood floating shelves to make your marble backsplash the main visual focus in your design.

Let the Light Bounce with a Gloss Finish

White is always the best choice of color in spaces that you need to feel and look light as much as possible, such as a smaller kitchen. You can achieve and improve this bright vibe if you choose kitchen wall tile with a finish that reflects light, such as a glazed or high gloss tile.

In the kitchen of Cecilia Halling Howells, an interior designer, white Oasis ceramic gloss tiles get used to the fullest. These add radiance and warmth to a color scheme that would have been all-neutral otherwise.

Marble surfaces and white timber cabinetry pair seamlessly with the zellige-inspired rectangular wall tiles laid in brick effect. The result is a tremendous chic industrial feel with a wall-mounted pot filler and brass lights.

White Subway Tile as a Timeless Choice

Trends always come and go, but with a backsplash made with white subway tiles, you know you can and will never go wrong, no matter how many years pass. Subway tiles have seen many changes in design trends through the decades, and these won’t be going anywhere shortly.

Tile design can be found in classic kitchens in the form of white look classic subway tile or a transitional kitchen that mixes traditional and contemporary. Brick backsplashes like white subway tile backsplash is an easy way to sharpen the look of your kitchen.

Whatever your style, the classic subway tiles can bring a cohesive and clean look to any kitchen and is a popular choice in farmhouse kitchens. The design of Studio McGee is a good example, where glossy white subway tile and white shaker cabinets blend flawlessly together.

Every time you hear the phrase “subway tile,” the first thing you probably think of is the all-too-famous white tile with a white grout appearance. Don’t worry if you are not a fan of this all-white ensemble because subway tiles also come in all colors and styles these days.

You can also use various shades of grout to make your backsplash more personalized. Just make sure, though, that you pick colors that will still blend well with your kitchen walls and countertops.

A Colorful Focal Point Can Do the Trick

Just because you have white cabinets doesn’t mean you should stick to the white backsplash, too. You can use patterned tiles to create an eye-catching focal point in your otherwise neutral white scheme for your kitchen.

Try looking for patterned encaustic tiles with natural pigments that give off a stylishly faded and prettily washed-out aesthetic. For example, encaustic tiles in a white and pink pattern will indeed highlight the area at the back of your stove and provide a stunning pop of color in contrast to your mostly monochrome kitchen space.

Natural Textures for More Character

Adding some character to your white cabinets can work wonders. You can add a marble or zellige tile with movement and texture in contrast to the hardware details and white theme.

If worries that the usual white and black kitchen will look too pristine to your liking, you can try to mix this up with textured tile. Even though white tiles are clean and classic, the use of zellige can create that old-world rustic feel as every tile is distinct from each other.

You can use hand-cut glazed terracotta tiles of Moroccan-style with uneven nature that will make them give off an irregular shimmer across your backsplash. After installation, this will have this magical pearlesque quality that silently shines in almost any space.

Interior designer Cortney Bishop maximized texture in a completely white kitchen with the addition of visually tantalizing natural materials. The white horizontal shiplap walls join the vertically paneled white wooden cabinets, with pale woods found in the ceiling and furniture.

However, the key player of the entire ensemble is the striking marble in green, gray used as a backsplash and for the kitchen island. The result is a celebration, not of the color used, but a statement of its natural place in a large or small kitchen.

Wall-to-Wall Tiling is a Great Way to Go

Where should your kitchen backsplash tile end in the first place? Is it with just one wall or with your sink?

Barbara Sallick, the cofounder of Waterworks, opted to tile all the four walls of her kitchen in Connecticut. With the use of 4×8-inch white tiles of subway style, Sallick continued the offset pattern way beyond the traditional world of a backsplash, with the tiling reaching up to the kitchen ceiling.

The last look is a kitchen wall décor glimmering with a glazed sheen on every side, an easy to clean space even if those splashes end up reaching higher.

A cost-effective alternative would be to use a brick veneer versus porcelain tile, for example. Brick veneers are manufactured and molded compared to stone veneers which are cut from real stone. Veneers have come a long way to giving an authentic look and depending on how much you use, Home Depot and other retailers sell sheets in different sizes.

Go Au Naturale with Earthy Stone Slab

An earthy stone backsplash might be the perfect match for your white kitchen cabinets. Aside from adding a sense of tranquility and peace to your kitchen, these stone backsplashes are longer-lasting, cheaper, and more durable, making them a great option.

You can choose a darker stone that will work as a beautiful contrast to your cabinets, achieving a more modern look. Neutral-colored light or white rocks can also go a long way in keeping things tranquil, and lots of natural light and plants can help you complete the appeal.

Iridescent Tiles for a Fun Statement

Iridescent tiles are metallic-looking, colorful and create a hard-to-miss bold statement right beside your white kitchen tiles. Get creative with iridescent tiles, since these are available in all sizes and shapes. You can pick smaller pieces to form a mosaic backsplash, or you can arrange iridescent tiles of rectangular shape in a herringbone pattern.

For those who love the appearance of scintillating tiles but find they are a little too bold for their taste, you can add a handful of these to the rest of the backsplash materials to create a fun and cute accent.

Mosaic to Unleash Your Creativity

Mosaic kitchen backsplashes are ideal options for DIY (do it yourself) enthusiasts who want to give their kitchen an updated appeal. Smaller pieces in a mosaic backsplash, typically with different shades of textured glass, stone, or tile, can help achieve that mosaic look.

All color schemes will undoubtedly be in perfect contrast with your white kitchen cabinets; it is still essential to make sure that they will complement the different colors of your countertops, surrounding walls, and other décor pieces.

Experiment with Nautical Navy Tile

Carla Aston designed another modern kitchen featuring a blue glass backsplash paired with gorgeous white cabinets if you prefer some contrast. With the addition of a matching window valance and a navy barstool seating, the designer also skillfully kept the navy-blue motif all over the space while striking a perfectly balanced color scheme. Globe pendant lights and a brushed brass faucet are lovely finishing touches for a bit of luxury to an otherwise nautical kitchen design.

Patterned Victorian Tile to Spice It Up

The kitchen designed by Old Seagrove Homes highlights a glossy backsplash made from patterned Victorian tiles. Their excellent pastel color creates a striking visual interest in the kitchen while still ensuring that it doesn’t distract from its overall farmhouse style. The designer brought the backsplash to the ceiling from the countertops and came up with an eye-catching wall that is a gentle complement for the dazzling popular cabinet color and makes a statement simultaneously.

Small White Marble Formats Work, Too

Finally, suppose you are not keen on the idea of using an entire marble slab for the backsplash. In that case, there is a more affordable option to add a luxurious look to different materials to your kitchen remodeling.

You can now find two brand small new formats of white marble tiles that offer an eternal style pared-back and simple that feature subtle light veining. Calacatta marble has a beautiful snowy tone with a matte polish that will surely add a sense of complete luxury to any room.

Using individual marble tiles creates a special effect, with the marble’s irregular vein jumping and skipping about the wall. Every piece of tile is quarried from natural marble and has gorgeous intricacies that make each one unique in its way.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the cost of installation for a kitchen backsplash?

The price will mainly depend on the specific backsplash materials you choose to use.

However, most of the time, you can expect to pay an average of $25 for every square foot or $1,000. More complex backsplash design ideas, such as those with complicated installations and the use of the best backsplash and most exotic materials, can cost you $36 for every square foot or $1,300 for a more oversized kitchen.

The best kitchen backsplash ideas are the ones that meet your budget.

Is it easy to install a glass tile backsplash for your kitchen?

Ensuring that the measurements and layout are correct is the secret to installing a glass tile kitchen backsplash, especially if you plan to incorporate some accent tiles.

You can try using a straightedge for laying out the design according to your measurements. You can then mix thin-set mortar based on the manufacturer’s instructions and apply this to the wall. Make sure that you work only on about 2 square feet at a time.

As for much thin-set mortar, you got around 45 minutes before it sets, which is already enough time for you to apply the paste, then lay the tiles on a wall before moving on to the next. Don’t forget to use unsanded grout to prevent causing scratches on the glass tiles.

How is a mosaic tile kitchen backsplash installed?

It is the same installation process as a glass tile backsplash. However, sanded grout is safe to use here since ceramic tiles don’t scratch as easily as glass ones. 

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