More light please.

I have a dark kitchen. It is on the darkest corner of the house. Who designed this house anyway?? The brightest area of our house are the areas we are never in...the bootroom/laundry area. So sad. I need sunshine and much prefer natural light than turning lights on.
When we redid our kitchen we painted it brown. Not the best plan as it is DARK (like I just said). I was ok with it as it was a good contrast to the cream cabinets and my gorgeous almond appliances. Painting our cabinets already helped a bunch in brightening up the place. I also was planning to do a tile backsplash in a very light color so the brown would really only be showing above the cabinets and the contrast does look very nice.
However. Here we are two years later and we haven't put in our backsplash yet. Our painted brown drywall backsplash has actually faired quite well and has only lately been starting to look like it needs painting again due to dings.
Knowing the winter is well on its way, which means my kitchen is even more dark and cold...I just could not paint it brown. I dug out an old bucket of taupe paint that our entire house was painted when we moved in. It isn't especially exciting, but it is light. So I have just spent the last while painting under the cabinets (where the tile eventually will be) a nice plain ol' taupe. I'm starting with the window side to see how I like it. So far it looks boring, but much brighter.
And BRIGHT is good. So I think it'll do.
Have you seen those sites where they show you their painted-to-look-like-tile backsplashes!? So cool!
Lately I've noticed how cool wainscoting backsplashes are. Or what about painted tin!

The options are endless. Who would have thought there were so many alternatives to tile? What other ones have you seen?