I never, or should I say my husband, hasn't, got round to finish tiling behind the wash basin so we used a 'washable wallpaper' and it drives me mad everyday. It never ceases to surprise me how much toothpaste, soap etc gets splashed against the wall and no matter how much I wipe it, it always leaves little marks which are impossible to get off without damaging the surface. If I could, I would tile every last inch of the bathroom. A quick spray and wipe and it always looks clean. I feel like I'm doing an indepth scrub constantly and it still never looks quite as pristine as I would like

Hi Irina! That's a really lovely kitchen, I think perhaps using a natural material with variation will be an excellent finishing touch...have a look at our New York Brick tiles, we keep these in stock in West London can send a sample if you think these could work http://www.stoneandceramicwarehouse.co.uk/wall-tiles/floors/item/new-york-bricks

At Lusso Stone we now offer splashbacks/ up-stands to clients with freestanding basins, we think this can help towards protecting paintwork ( if tiles are unavailable ). It seems to be working quite well as the stone resin material up-stand compliments the stone basins whilst making sure paint work stays well away from waster marks.

This is ours, standard upstand and large piece of quartz behind the cooker. In hindsight, and if budget allowed, we would have the upstand higher up like your image, perhaps to the bottom of our wall cupboards. We find the cooker splashed onto the paint as does the sink. We used the same paint as we have elsewhere in the house which you can normally wipe down but for some reason the finish on the kitchen means we have real trouble doing this, so we’ll have to repaint periodically.