Kitchen and bathroom tile backsplashes

Your walls are a blank canvas. Paint can add color, but nothing adds personality like a backsplash with tile you love. The choices are almost endless, so let your style be your guide.

If you love to cook and hate to clean, choose carefully. Natural stone and marble are beautiful, but they are porous, so they stain more easily and need sealing and special cleaners. Small tiles mean more grout joints, and grout joints are where grease and dirt collect.

If low maintenance is a priority, we recommend ceramic, porcelain, glass or metal tile, since stains cannot get into the surface. An upgraded, stain-resistant grout helps too. And the larger the tile, the fewer grout joints to clean.

If this is your forever home, choose something you will love for years, not just what is on sale this week. If you plan to sell within a few years, neutral colors and classic shapes appeal to more buyers. Subway tile has stood the test of time.

And don't pick an installer on price alone. TV makes it look like a backsplash goes up in an afternoon, but good work takes longer. Ask how the contractor will protect your cabinets and countertops, how they will keep dust out of the rest of the house, which grout they will use, and whether the joint between the countertop and the wall will be caulked or grouted. (It should be caulked.)