I would just cut the bottom tiles, it's common to have your cuts on the bottom and your full tile at the top. You could also consider an up stand instead, less tiling and cutting. You could even consider acrylic cut to size in a colour of your choice and make a feature of it, it may look nicer than a half tile. Are you planning to cut the unit down on the right? I presume it's a slightly taller than average unit, which is why the work top ended up a little higher than you want. We're tall and hate our work tops 890mn , we're stuck with our kitchen now, but in future would have higher ones. Our Utility is much higher as we have American Machines, perfect. Everyones' different!

Thank you so much - yes it seems that most go for a white look with the black so perhaps we need to consider this and add colour in other places! I like the blue above though that's nice. And perhaps it's more about going for a herringbone style or hexagon to make it feel a bit different with a white/grey tile.

What colour are your tiles? Hard to tell from the picture. I had the same dilemma as my fittings are brushed brass and I have black accessories (screen, rad & mirror). My tiles are a light concrete /stone grey and I picked a trim that was a light grey and it disappears into the tiles. . If you have a tile shop locally that deals with trade then you can go in and take your hardware with you and see the trims? Or even buy one to take home and try as you can return them. They have a range of colours - brass is usually special order and so far all the brushed brass items Iver bought from different sellers have all matched so 🤞 I would only use a stand out trim on places you want to highlight. So brass trim on your recess might look lovely.

I love geometric tiles and it could look fantastic. If you share a picture of the tiles I’m sure you will have more comments. Something like this would look nice.