Hubby and I have stayed in Venice twice, once with our young children. We took a vaporetto to Murano to visit the glassworks. Fascinating to watch the men work. The kids each were given a beautiful clear glass horse figurine, which all these years later they still treasure and display. On our last trip, we visited a small shop run by siblings. We purchased the last of a collection of seven pendant light globes their father had blown for the shop. They were all the same shape but different colours of glass. We purchased them for the new modern house we planned to build the following year or so. We are pleased and grateful to have such unique, handmade and time-honoured beauty embellish the spaces in our home, and the lights always interest guests and we then have a story to tell.

You’re right in that it’s quite skinny now. The floor plan I uploaded is actually the original, since then whoever renovated removed the return on the bench and added an island instead. I’ve uploaded a photo of that below (don’t mind the mess :)). We’re struggling to envision how we can modernise the space without shoe horning something in that isn’t quite right, i.e. I’d really love a big island beach but can’t see how we can achieve that without moving the structural wall. As with most families, we spend a lot of time in the kitchen - it’s the busiest part of the house so we’d like it to be modern but also functional with plenty of space for the kids. We see the lounge room as more of a serene, quiet space for us to relax at the end of the day when the kids are in bed. I’ve included more photos of how we currently have the place set up. We’re also going to replace all flooring with vinyl planks (kids and inside dogs don’t mix well with real timber floors).

Unfortunately Erina, your best bet sometimes in this industry is to cut your losses and if it important enough to rectify, outsource a separate contractor/company to come in and re-do it at your own expense.....you just have to look at it as part of the cost of your project.......many people will have stories of deciding pay twice (sometimes more!) to eventually achieve the satisfactory results - ultimately you have to live with it long term and sometimes it's worth it to get it right....ultimately only you can make that decision one way or the other........it's not necessarily right or fair, but unfortunately these are the risks (& hard lessons) of building Best of luck Erina, PD :)

Hi there, I love the look of your 50's kitchen: takes me back to my childhood home but our kitchen was about 4 cupboards and 3 overheads!! By todays std it was like one of the pantries people are putting in!! I was impressed with the "see what you need to store first": that is the best place to start, then thought glass display cupboards were all the go but you have those! Unless you could copy them for the corners? Then I thought open shelving with micro on one: NEVER on the bench. Timber shelves could have bright multi coloured glass or china which was all the rage! Please tho do not go for the lounge curtains with red, orange and every other colour large squares: nothing subtle or quiet about them and nothing nice about them either!! Cheers Margot